


The Mighty Thor: Asgard's Worthiest Matchmaker (should not quit his day job)

by Reremouse (TheBelfry)



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (isn't great), BAMF Lucky, Being king isnt all it's cracked up to be, Clint Barton forgives, Curses, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Immortal Avengers, Loki is a horse sometimes, Lucky the Dog - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mixed MCU and comics characterization, Muspelheim, Romance, also a fox, but it was a long time ago, domestic avengers fluff, golden apples, occasionally a snake, the story was true, weird creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5239613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBelfry/pseuds/Reremouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story is less about Thor than you would think. He shouldn’t quit his day job yet. So what is the story about? Loki is persuaded to give heroism a try, or at least take a vacation from evildoing, on Midgard for the low, low price of a bushel of magic apples. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is Tony Stark, living the dissatisfied life and bantering with anything that moves. Things proceed in an orderly and domestic manner right up until the point where Loki and Tony are whisked away to Muspelheim and must find their way home without magic, ideally before Tony’s wounds claim his leg, or worse, his life (though he thinks that’s probably an exaggeration).</p><p>Sincerest apologies to anyone who saw the first posting. This one is staying put.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mighty Thor: Asgard's Worthiest Matchmaker (should not quit his day job)

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This is my first Big Bang, and it was a trip. Including the part where I posted on my original posting day instead of the final posting day I was assigned! (Sorry, everyone). Batwynn’s art is a delight to behold, and she was very kind to work with throughout, including the part about me posting on the wrong day and then rushing to take it all down. Championship material, that Batwynn. Her art will be linked as soon as possible. I feel like I owe her an apology for my mini bang turning Big on its own, but I’ve always been wordy.
> 
> This whole thing was kicked off by @snugglyhiddles riffing on Thor and Loki banter after Thor discovers Loki masquerading as Odin. I asked her permission to be inspired, and she graciously granted it. And thank god on that, anyway, because I had no idea what I would write up until that point

"Is this my wandering son I see?"

"You never said I was not welcome in Asgard after forsaking the throne," Thor says, waiting for some sign before lifting his face to his father. The strongest force in the universe was, after all, habit. 

"There are many things I never said, my son." 

The smile in Odin's voice is sign enough, and he lifts his face with a self-deprecating grin. "Kings and princes do not speak of such things." Not out loud. But it has taken losing almost everything for him to hear them silently. 

"What brings you home?" Odin leans heavily on the arm of the throne, fingers wrapped tightly around the haft of Gungnir.

Thor shakes his head. "This is not my home." Not anymore. 

"Humor an old man." Only a fool would call Odin an old man. "You have come with a purpose."

"I have come with a proposal." Thor rests his elbow on his bent knee. "The Midgardians evolve faster than we ever expected."

"Their lives are no less brief for it," Odin says, and Thor holds his gaze, unwavering. "No." 

"But father - " 

"No. No good can come of bestowing upon mortals that which they are not prepared for." 

"Who are we to say what they are prepared for? Idunn's apples are merely our good fortune. Is it not Asgard's role, as protector of the Nine, to see that the realms' champions are worthy?"

"Humans are not worthy." Odin stands abruptly. "You would do well to remember that." 

"Are all Asgardians worthy, then?" 

"It is our birthright." Odin's voice is sharp. No longer warm, and there is a note of unease Thor never recognized before. Not in his father. "Our responsibility. Perhaps, some day, they will become worthy, but that day is far off." 

"That day has come," Thor answers, standing. The words come more gently than he expected. 

"Perhaps you see worth in your companions, Thor, but - "

"Not I, father. Mjolnir has seen into my comrades' hearts and adjudged no fewer than two of them worthy." 

"WHAT?" 

The next few moments happen rapidly, and Thor will never be entirely sure precisely the order they occurred in. Gungnir falls in a shower of green sparks, and the air ripples alarmingly around his father's form. And for just a moment, one half moment, Thor could swear he sees - "Loki?"

The ripples stop as abruptly as a pool suddenly frozen over, and they stare at each other, unbreathing. In that moment, Thor knows. 

He knows and. 

He surprises himself. 

"Loki," he says again, sure this time. 

"I.... could perhaps see to granting you the apples if we could forget this ever happened?" The voice and face are Odin, but the wry expression is entirely Loki. As is the tightening grip on Gungnir. 

Thor raises his hands. "Only tell me where he is." 

Loki's eyes narrow, suspicious in the wrinkled face. "Why?"

"I have recently lost a mother and a brother. Would you have me believe my father lost to me, as well?" 

"Perhaps he is." The defensiveness with which Loki curls back onto the throne is as familiar as it is dangerous. 

"Perhaps," Thor agrees. "But I do not believe him so." 

"You were all too willing to believe me dead." 

"I saw you die, honorably, before my own eyes." Thor holds his gaze. "That, I do not believe to have been an illusion."

"I'm quite alive." 

"Now." Thor returns to kneeling, hoping he has lost none of his ability to read his brother of old. More of this is familiar to his instincts than strange. "That does not absolve you of your sacrifice. Or your honor." 

"I am sitting on the king's throne." 

"I had noticed," Thor says, unable to hide his smile entirely. "Would Asgard allow Loki to rule them, to repair a broken city?"

Loki grimaces, passing a hand over his face. When it falls, the face is young again, and undeniably Loki. "Undoubtably not."

"Do you think I noticed none of the rebuilding? The city's rebirth?" 

"I, well..." If he was not convinced of Loki's intentions before, the welcome awkwardness he remembers so well from 'before' reassures him. 

Thor stands and risks clapping a hand on Loki's shoulder, armored in their father's familiar plate. He ignores the look of utter surprise on Loki's face and gives him a squeeze. "Perhaps we needed a change, even unaware." 

"I have no intention of spending the rest of my days here," Loki snaps, the venom clearly summoned with effort. 

"This is your home." 

"No more than it is yours," Loki says, holding his eyes. It is true, Thor thinks, in all the complicated ways. 

"Where is he?" 

"A, um," Loki gestures absently with one hand and eventually sighs. "Oh, somewhere. A piece of old Asgardia, I suppose, you could call it. He's quite safe there with Uncle Cul." 

"How did he come to be there?" Thor asks, because there is always more to Loki's stories. Much as, he has been reminded, as there is always more to Loki. 

"I may have had a hand in it," Loki mutters, off to one side. 

"But he is safe." 

"Scout's honor," Loki says, one hand held aloft. "He'll find his way home eventually. Think of it as a lovely family holiday."

"He hates Uncle Cul."

"A brief retirement." 

"Hmm," Thor says, unsure just yet how he wants to respond to all of this. "Ah," he says eventually, when the correct course of action comes to him. He nods to himself and mounts the stairs. 

"Ah?" Loki echoes, scooting back a bit further in the throne. 

"Indeed, brother," Thor says, and punches him straight in the nose. 

 

Thor is grateful for many things. For secret passages behind the throne. For the deep satisfaction he feels in landing one good punch in his brother's face. And for Loki sleeping it off long enough to give him precious time to think. 

He has thought. 

And concluded, without a doubt, that Loki is more Odin's son, really, than he ever will be. 

A soft moan from the bed signals Loki's waking. 

Thor waits. 

"I'm not in prison?" Loki's voice is only a little muffled by the swelling in his sinuses. 

"No," Thor agrees. 

"Why?" The bedclothes rustle and Loki sits up, one hand testing the swelling on his face, the other tangled in Thor's blankets. 

There are many answers Thor could give, some more fond than others. He settles on the answer he assumes Loki will accept in this moment. "I owed you one." 

Loki's muttering is so predictable, Thor leaves him to it. Eventually, Loki's voice is a bit more clear, and he asks, "I thought you owed me far more than a punch in the nose." 

"Once." Thor nods. "But my debt of gratitude to you for your sacrifice on Svartalfheim did much to reduce your debt." 

"Oh."

There is silence in the bedchamber then, save for the cries of sea birds, and the distant sound of construction. Thor is the one to break the silence. "Why did you do it?" 

"I don't know. I suppose it seemed like the best idea at the ti - Oh, ugh. Did you honestly put me into bed wearing my boots?" 

"It's my bed," Thor protests. "I've slept in it countless times wearing boots." 

Loki makes a small distressed noise. "That's disgusting." 

Thor leaves him to his disgust (really? boots in bed are his limit?) and changes the subject. "So you have nothing but Asgard's best interests at heart?"

Loki's jaw sets and he folds his arms. "I have our mother's memory at heart, Thor. I will not allow Asgard to die fighting an unnecessary war any more than you would." 

"And yet, you are the one sitting on the throne, buried beneath the administrative minutiae of reconstruction."

Loki grimaces. "Well, someone in the royal family has to. And you never had much aptitude for it." 

"Aye." 

It's true. 

"Father could have." 

"Father is grieving and wants nothing more than to avenge Mother." Loki pushes his way out of bed and paces across the floor. 

It's agitated. Preoccupied. More like the Loki he's known since than the Loki he knew before. 

"Do you regret what you have done?" Thor asks. 

Loki stops, and Thor watches his fingers tighten around each other. "No. It is not in my nature to regret." Only to move forward, keep moving ever forward. 

"Will I regret leaving you here, to rule our people?" 

"Perhaps?" Loki asks, in a rather small voice. "It's always possible. I may not actually be any good at all of this at all." 

Thor thinks of the rebuilding happening outside. The restored statue of Bor. The sweeping gold arcs shining again in the sun. "And what will you do when our Father returns?" 

"Oh, that's easy. Flee for my life."

That startles a laugh out of Thor, and once he is laughing, he finds himself disinclined to stop. "You call that a plan!"

"It's worked before!" 

"When, exactly?" 

"Er, once... or twice." 

Thor's laughter subsides to a chuckle and he drops his hand onto Loki's shoulder. "You will find safe haven on Midgard when that time comes." 

"You must be joking!"

"Well, I have been told I have a charming sense of humor." Thor picks his cape up from the back of a chair and fastens it to his breastplate. 

"You're delusional." 

"By others." Mjolnir flies to his hand and he hooks it onto his belt. 

Loki follows him to the door, hands out. "They're mad."

Thor pauses, hand on the handle and raises his eyebrows. "Don't you have a world to run?"

"I ... you..."

"Be well, brother. The worlds owe you a debt." He turns in the doorway. "And forget not the apples when you come." 

Behind him, Loki curses. 

 

Tony curses, jumping and staggering against a work table when Thor "Hmm"s over his shoulder. 

"I am buying you a bell," Tony says, leveling a finger at his chest. "A loud one." 

"Why would you bestow such a gift upon me?" Thor makes effort to keep his face straight, perfectly guileless and good natured. Channelling his inner Golden Retriever, he finds, usually does the trick. 

It does not do the trick on Tony. "Bell," Tony says with emphasis. "What are you doing down here anyway?"

"I have come to invite you to our great carousing." Thor evaluates the effectiveness of this turn of phrase, and rephrases. "There are libations, ribaldry, and dancing upstairs." 

"What's the occasion?" 

"Peace in Asgard," Thor says as vaguely as possible. "And agreement of alliance with Midgard when the forces of the Mad Titan approach." 

"So, what you're saying is..." 

"You can count on Asgard's warriors when the time comes to face Thanos." 

Tony claps him on the shoulder and stands up. Thor politely ignores the creak and pop of the mortal's joints. "Well then, never let it be said I turned down a little ribaldry." 

"Aye," Thor agrees. "Nor libations." 

"I've got plenty of libations down here," Tony points out on the way to the elevator. 

"And you did not think to share?" Thor puts on his best offended frown. 

Tony shrugs. "You didn't ask. You snooze, you lose, Blondie. And anyway, that's my private stash. Intimate confidants only." 

Thor presses a hand to his chest. "Am I not intimate, Tony Stark?" 

"Nope," Tony says, in a gross display of cold-hearted denial. "You're a bro." 

"Bro," Thor echoes, because, could he not? 

"Bro," Tony confirms. "You know. One of the guys. The dude. A dude. You appreciate the boobs and the booze, and take every available opportunity to prove your masculinity." 

"Are you not a bro, then?" 

Tony shrugs. "I don't need to prove my masculinity. I'm a billionaire." 

"I am a prince." 

"And yet," Tony says, as if it wins the argument. Truth be told, Thor lost track of the argument some time ago, and it concerns him not to concede to Tony's strange human categories. 

"Aye," he says, "As you say." 

"So," Tony says on his own. "What kind of ribaldry are we expecting here?" He claps and rubs his hands together. "Are we talking strictly family, or is there hired entertainment expected?" 

"Family," Thor says, with a pang he chooses to ignore beneath his breastbone. "Clint suggested, I believe he called it, a rooftop barbecue for old time's sake." 

"Tell me he didn't buy a little Smokey Joe and put it on my landing pad." 

Thor runs that sentence back and forth, and it still doesn't make sense. However, "There is nothing little about his purchase." In truth, the size of the cooking appliance Clint and Steve rolled out of the Quinjet seemed more than appropriate to Thor. Few of them, after all, were light eaters. 

"Come," Thor says, slinging an arm over Tony's shoulders, not incidentally hustling him into the elevator. "I smell the meat grilling from here, and surely even you would not deny a god his sustenance." 

"Sustenance," Tony mocks, waving a hand for mocking emphasis. "You make burgers and dogs sound like some kind of roast beast on a banquet table." 

Thor suppresses a laugh. "I have had many roast beasts, Tony. Few of them are worth remembering in the face of a good hamburger. They tend to be gamy, and unpleasantly tough, riddled with inedible gristly bits." 

By the time they step out of the elevator to see that, yes indeed, Clint Barton and Steve Rogers have installed a gleaming chrome deluxe edition grill on Stark Tower's landing pad, surrounded with lawn chairs Tony didn't even know he owned, and might not have owned before today, the smells, sounds, and incipient revelry of rooftop barbecue are undeniable. 

"Beer?" Sam asks, holding out a hand with the requisite freshly opened cold one in it. 

Tony takes it. It's only the expected thing to do, and he suspects he's going to need a lot more of these. "I'm gonna need a lot more of these." 

"Yeah, no." Sam gestures to the patio refrigerator and freezer set that has also been added to the landing pad since Tony retreated to his lab. "That's not gonna be a problem." 

Tony needs to leave his lab more often. 

"Did Clint seriously buy an outdoor refrigerator and freezer on the Avengers' dime?" 

There is a general exchange of looks among Thor, Sam, Natasha, and a lingering Rhodey. "Maybe," Rhodey concedes after accepting he's probably the least likely to earn any kind of lasting Tony wrath out of this. 

"It wasn't Clint, though," Natasha says, leaning back against the rooftop bar. (And really, his landing pad is starting to look less like a landing pad and more like an open air bachelor pad. He's got indoors for bachelor pad.) She takes a pull from her beer. 

"Are we playing 20 questions, or are you actually going to tell me?" Tony folds his arms, and Thor is aware of the tightness in his posture. The posture of a man used to being on the outside, even within his group of friends. 

Perhaps that is why Thor pays more attention to it these days. 

"And here I was thinking we could play beer pong for it," Natasha answers, draining her bottle and setting it aside. 

"Yeah," Rhodey says, "No. You do not wanna challenge Tony to beer pong on a roof top in the middle of New York City," 

"It was ONCE, Rhodey, And it was my birthday." 

"Pepper Potts made the purchase," Thor says, taking pity on the tension in Tony's shoulders in spite of the lightness of his banter. "I believe her orders were to drag you out of your lab and force you to have fun." 

"She is not the boss of me," Tony says, spinning on his foot. "You guys enjoy the party. I've got a suit to tune - up?" Tony finds himself dangling from Thor's gentle grip like a kitten.

"Please, Tony, stay. We would enjoy your company." 

Tony looks from Thor to Natasha and Sam, over to Rhodey who's already gone back to the grill to argue with Clint, and sighs. It all seems a little over dramatic to him, but whatever. "Okay. Fine. Put me down." 

Natasha passes him an open beer and clinks her bottle against it. "To mandatory relaxation and fun," she says. 

"Is that what this is?" 

She shrugs. "Give or take a few more beers, yeah. The guys installing the sound system are due to deliver within the hour." 

"I've got a landing pad sound system." 

Natasha slings an arm over Tony's shoulder, "think of it as the most exclusive club in New York. Once the sun goes down, Sam's firing up the lasers and lights."

"You know, this was not what I envisioned when I invited you all to live with me." 

"We're an unpredictable people," Natasha says, deadpan. "Drink up, Stark. It's time to play the cards you're dealt and have fun like a man." 

There are, as it turns out, actual cards. And Tony plays them. Tony plays them and loses his shirt until he gets a decent count on the deck, and ends up only losing a sleeve or two to Clint, who's probably been counting cards the whole time like the circus freak he is. 

There are actual cards and actual drinks to drink like a man, and fortunately the lasers are of the non-lethal variety (the same cannot be said of the drinks), and Thor, of all people, knows his way around a grill. 

Who knew. 

"You never said you could cook," Tony accuses Thor, eating what is arguably one of the better burgers consumed in recent memory. 

"You never asked," Thor says, like a man who has not clearly been shirking his share of kitchen duty for the best part of a year. 

"Duty shirker," Tony says and points a finger at Thor's chest. 

"Hmm," Thor agrees. "I have come to recognize that duty is not as important as I was raised to believe." 

Tony clutches his chest in a manner more dramatic than the situation calls for in Thor's opinion. "Who are you, and what have you done with our resident God of Thunder and Golden Retrievers?" 

"You humans have unrealistic expectations of your gods," Thor says. 

"Yeah, well, I could have told you that." Tony finishes the rest of his burger in one big bite and chases it with his latest beer. 

"Yes. You are an atheist, are you not?" 

"Damn right I am." 

"How, exactly, do you reconcile that with the god who cooked your dinner?" Thor examines Tony from another angle. 

Tony shrugs. "People, I believe in. You're just an over-powered god-shaped person. Though I may be convinced to elevate you to God of Really Good Hamburgers after a couple more parties like this." 

"You flatter me," says the erstwhile God of Thunder. "Men, in this day and age, worship hamburgers far more than mere thunder." 

Tony sputters out a laugh and reaches over to clink his bottle against Thor's. "That's actually pretty perceptive of you." 

"Only observant." Thor drains his bottle and takes the time to snag a fresh drink for Tony, as well, passing it over. "As an observant friend, I can't help but notice that you have not mentioned Pepper of late." 

Tony shakes his head, draining the first beer and making inroads on the next before answering. "It never could have worked out for long. She's a beautiful cinnamon roll. Too good for me. Too pure." 

"I have seen you consume cinnamon rolls, Tony Stark."

Tony snorts and slings back another drink. "She's my best friend and the CEO of my company. That's... well, some things are more important than romance and sex. I'm not going to lie and say it wasn't an uncomfortable conversation, because it was a very uncomfortable conversation, and one I hope never to repeat in this lifetime. But I'm glad it happened, because it means I get to keep her." 

Thor hmms.

"I wasn't expecting you to be disapproval guy." 

"I understand perhaps better than you know." Thor shakes his head. "And I do not disapprove. I did not expect it from you. That's all." 

"Hey, I can be emotionally mature when the time calls for it." Tony props a leg on the edge of his seat and tips his head back to watch the laser show for a moment. "I know what's good for me long term. I'm just not always great at admitting it to myself. And I usually suck at following through on it." 

Thor claps him on the shoulder. "You are not alone, friend." 

Their bottles clink neatly together. "Yeah, I figured. I haven't had to defend Pepper's sheer awesomeness against Jane's incredible brainiac talents in a while." 

"We can agree, I think, that they are impressive ladies." 

"Who are far, far, better than you or I deserve." 

Thor shakes his head. "Not better, Tony. Only unsuited for lives like ours. In this, alone, my father was correct. We need a companion who can be at our sides in all things, not waiting home, alone, for our glorious return." 

"You realize that leaves us a really small dating pool, right?" 

Thor barks a laugh and leans his elbows on his knees. "Perhaps we require the aid of a highly specialized matchmaker." 

"I tried that once," Tony says, "and it was great for a while, but she's still doing time. The feds tend to frown on specialized matchmakers when money's involved." 

"A true friend would find you a suitable match." 

"Most of my friends try to match me up with Miss and Mr Right Now, sometimes both at the same time. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing per se, but now that I don't have Pepper to evict them in the morning, it's a little awkward. I'm not a DIY guy in that arena." And none of those matches, Thor realizes, are more than a temporary solution. What Tony needs is a more lasting solution. If not permanent then, at least, comfortingly eternal. 

Challenging. 

Brilliant. 

With a modicum of danger and social impropriety. For whom Tony's wealth is naught but a novelty. Thor looks at Tony a long time before allowing his thoughts to reach their logical conclusion in the ever shrinking dating pool.

"Would you give me the honor of attempting your match?" 

"Uh," Tony says, leaning away minutely. Thor is aware of Tony's eyes sweeping him up and down. "Um." 

"Peace." Thor chuckles. "You are no more my type than I am yours." 

"I have a type?" 

"Tall and brilliant," Thor says, leaving out the rest. 

"Huh," Tony says. "I guess I do." 

"And I shall do my part to evict them in the morning, should the situation call for it."

 

Thor remains outside on the landing pad, idly watching the city lights and tossing a ball to Lucky. No one quite remembers when Barton's dog came to live with them, but Thor suspects he has been living here in the tower with them longer than any of them, save Clint, are aware. 

A soggy tennis ball drops into Thor's lap. 

He throws it at the grill, banking it neatly and watching Lucky pirouette, jaws snapping on air before scrambling after it. Thor closes his eyes, listening to the faint sounds of the city and Lucky's clattering toenails.

The ball drops in his lap. 

Thor chuckles and scoops it up, opening his eyes to throw it again. 

Lucky whines from the other side of the landing pad. 

A long, pink, doggy tongue slurps over Thor's fingers and the suspiciously green-eyed fox sits up on his hind legs, begging shamelessly. 

Thor huffs and throws the ball straight off the edge of the tower, watching the fox leap after it, snapping it neatly out of the air with his jaws, seemingly oblivious to the cloud of grass-green fairy lights suspending him 83 stories above the streets below. 

And so Thor watches with folded arms and eyebrows raised while his not entirely unexpected visitor floats down to the landing pad and trots the ball back to Thor's lap. "I am not throwing it again for you, Loki. Lucky can't fly, and I don't want to be the one explaining to Barton why his dog suddenly thinks he can." 

Loki shimmers back into his usual form, brushing dust, or possibly green sparkles, off his traveling leather. "I could give him the gift of flight." 

"I don't want to explain that to Barton, either." 

The grin Loki gives him is wickedly familiar. Or familiarly wicked. "But think how much fun it would be." 

"Man was not made to have so much fun, Loki." 

"Spoilsport." Loki seats himself on Tony's long-vacated chair and conjures a steak, waving it in Lucky's direction. It does not take long for Lucky to decide Loki might not be so frightening after all, and settles at his feet to enjoy the gift before its giver changes his mind. 

"You look well," Thor says, tucking away thoughts of Tony and matchmaking for the time being.

"The rarified air of Asgard seems to have done a world of good for my poor, muddled head," Loki agrees. 

"You mean the rarified air of Asgard's Throne." 

Loki clears his throat and waves the implied questions away with the sweep of a hand. "I'm sure the vacation did father a world of good, as well. He only needed a little encouragement." 

"You mean banishment." 

"Of course not. He was welcome to return at any time." 

"From Old Asgard?" 

"Er." 

"Hidden for Millennia from Heimdall's gaze and the World Tree itself?" 

"Well..." Loki wraps his arms around his knees. "It isn't that difficult if you know where to look." 

"Does father?" 

"I expect he does now," Loki says after a moment. 

"There are times I wonder how you've survived as long as you have, brother." 

"Oh please. It's hardly even the worst thing an Asgardian's ever done. Father has done much worse himself." Loki's words, in Thor's humble opinion, lack a certain amount of conviction, but he will not look this particular gift horse in the mouth. 

"It is good to have you returned to us, sane and whole." 

"As sane as ever," Loki assures him, which is not as reassuring in hindsight as Thor could have hoped. "Stuffed full of all sorts of merry jests." 

"I hope not." 

"You should see your face." Loki ruffles Lucky behind the ears and stretches his legs in front of him. It's charmingly domestic. 

"Did you bring the apples, as I requested?" 

"Of course I did." And of course he would. Thor expected that part of his payment to Loki for the apples would include, at some point in time, convincing authority figures of Loki's reformed nature. 

"I trust they are suitably expensive." 

"You have no idea," Loki says with a smile that worries Thor to his bones. "But, as I am a good and loyal brother," Loki continues over Thor's incredulous noises, "I will ask nothing you are not capable of freely giving." 

"And where are you keeping them?" It isn't that he doesn't trust Loki - quite - but he will rest more soundly once he knows the plan is well underway. 

Loki reaches into his coat and pulls out a single apple from a pocket too slim to hold so much as a cherry. The apple glows faintly against the lights of New York, and Loki polishes it against his shirt, then takes a bite. "Delicious," he says with precise enunciation. He offers it to Thor. "Bite?" 

Thor raises his eyebrows. 

"You know," Loki says, waving the apple at him and holding it out of the suddenly-interested Lucky's reach. "To be certain they're the real deal." 

"Fine. Give it here." Thor takes a big bite, savoring the tingling sweetness with a sigh he can't hold back in time. "By the Nine, I've missed this." He goes to take a second bite only to find the apple snatched out of his reach. 

"Get your own," Loki says with a crunch. "And anyway, I need this one." 

Thor looks him over. "You seem whole." 

Loki rubs his stomach not entirely absently. "I've always been talented that way, you know." 

Thor tries to reach across to pull Loki's dark coat aside, but Loki smacks his hand away. "It will be fine." He holds up the half-eaten apple. "Did you think I only hungered for a light snack?"

He has a point. "You offered so casually, I could not be certain." 

The little sideways twist of Loki's lips is both familiar and familiarly aggravating. "You always did need to learn to pay more attention." 

Thor narrows his eyes, preparing to tell Loki just how much attention he's been paying. 

"There you are, boy. Catch." Loki tosses the apple core to Lucky, who snatches it out of the air and gobbles it down before Thor can so much as leave his seat. 

"Loki!" 

"What?" Loki scratches his fingernails above Lucky's wagging tail. "I like him." 

"You have no idea how that apple would affect a mortal dog." 

"Psh." Loki gives Lucky a final pat and stands up. When he stretches, Thor can finally see the dark stickiness of the shirt over Loki's belly. "He's hardly the first dog given one of Idunn's apples. Only the first in a very long while. Good boy," he adds to Lucky, who wags his entire body at the praise. 

Thor rubs his hands over his face, muffling a groan. "I will not be the one to explain to Barton why you've stolen his dog." 

"A dog cannot be stolen, Thor," Loki says with all solemnity. "If anything, Barton's dog has stolen me." His hand drops to Lucky's head absently. "I suppose I can forgive him, given all I put him through under the influence of the Mad Titan." 

"You can forgive - ?"

"You might want to have a word with him in the morning, Thor. I'd hate to be a shock to his system first thing after breakfast." 

Thor privately doubts Loki would wait even that long. "You may need another apple," he warns, only half in jest. 

"It's a good thing I packed extra then, isn't it?" Loki brushes the fur from his hands on his coat and makes a sweeping gesture toward the tower. "So. Would you show me to my quarters? Or did you intend for me to camp beneath the stars?" 

 

"That's Loki," Steve says with a casual glance at Thor. 

"Aye," Thor agrees. "Have I not mentioned my brother is recovered of his madness?" 

"How about you elaborate on that a little bit?" Tony asks, not looking away from Loki. Thor is aware of the twitch of Tony's fingers. 

Loki spreads his hands in a gesture of innocence. 

Nobody is fooled. 

Least of all Loki, who shrugs. "If I did not come in peace, you would all have died in your sleep." 

Natasha examines him with a tilt of her head. "He's got a good point." 

"And yet, here you all live and breathe, hale and hungry." He casts a glance at the amply-laden breakfast table. 

"Saving the world is a great calorie-burning workout," Tony says over a comparatively modest plate, with a gesture to Steve's third helping. 

"So I see," Loki agrees, noting that all hands have presently been removed from weapons and weapon-ready positions. "May I sit?" 

"Next to Thor," Steve suggests in a way that's less suggestion and more a polite order. 

"Of course." Loki waits for Thor to sit, and then sits next to him. He puts only fruit and a single slice of bacon on his plate. 

"Not hungry?" Clint asks, well-informed for someone who's not even looking at Loki. Thor privately reminds himself that he owes Barton a great debt. 

"I ate well upon my arrival last night," Loki says, with a glance at Thor. 

"And yet, your figure is still so svelte," Tony says around a bite of tomato. "What's your secret? Atkins? Volumetrics?" 

"Battling for my life," Loki answers casually. "It is, as you say, a calorie-burning workout." 

"No, see, I said saving the world. Battling for your life is what happens when you've made a lot of enemies by being what we call 'the bad guy' here on Earth." Tony makes air quotes with his fingertips.

"The bad guy," Loki echoes with a hint of amusement. 

"It's not the most creative colloquialism, sure, but you've gotta admit it's succinct." Tony picks up his fork and stabs a piece of avocado.

"Straight to the point," Loki agrees, devoid of any inflection whatsoever. "Certainly no time or thought wasted in nuance or complexity of character." 

"We like our world saving nice and uncomplicated," Tony says. "See bad guy. Defeat bad guy. Smile for the press." 

"And where," Loki asks, strawberry in hand, "does inviting former bad guy to breakfast come in?" 

Tony shrugs at that one. "The occasional bad guy has been known to get an invite to breakfast and it's worked out in the end." 

He's looking at nobody in particular, but Steve is the one to heave a sigh. "He was brainwashed, Tony." 

Tony pours himself another coffee. "Did I name names? I did not name names. Bucky Barnes is an American Hero." He turns back to Loki, "And anyway, I didn't invite you to breakfast. That's all on big brother there."

Loki casts Thor a glance and returns his attention to Tony. "Would you like to correct his assumption, or shall I?" 

Thor sighs. "Loki is the elder of us. Barely." 

"Thought you were the crown prince, big boy." 

"It is a recent discovery." Thor mumbles into his coffee. 

"But delightful, don't you think?" Loki asks with some relish. "Especially when you take into account the general lack of legitimacy all around." 

"Now is not the time to air our family troubles, brother,"

"Oh, please." Loki ignores Thor's answering huff. "It's hardly a secret we were both delivered to our mother's doting arms as if upon the wings of a stork." He leans an elbow on the table as if conspiring with Tony across it. "Thor's own mother was a - hmm, what would you call it here?" 

"Thor?" 

"You'll have no help from me." 

"Norse mythology says she was Midgard itself," Natasha says, as if she's been part of the conversation all along. 

Loki laughs. "Oh, that would explain a few things, would it not?" 

"Loki..." 

Loki holds up his hands. "Peace, brother. You know well my sympathy for the urge to defend and avenge one's mother." 

"Not the Earth, then?" Natasha asks, as if it doesn't matter. It might not. It's difficult to tell with Natasha, really. 

"Close enough," is all Loki says. "And I was borne across the branches of the world tree in Odin's arms, the spoils of war." He says it so easily, Thor has to glance at him, look closely at his face for any signs of - anything. 

"So you're adopted?" Tony asks.

"Does it matter?" Loki fixes Tony with his gaze. 

"Not to me." Tony cuts another piece of omelette and eats it with a twist to his mouth.

"They had a use for you," Clint says, looking intently only at his breakfast. 

"Perhaps we understand each other more than we knew," Loki answers him. 

Clint shrugs, but otherwise doesn't answer. 

Loki, surprisingly or not, does not push. He turns instead to Tony. "Did your family have a use for you?" 

"Me, personally?" Tony leans back in his chair, nothing but coffee left now out of his breakfast. "Always had a sneaking suspicion the old man would have traded me in for a more Howard-like model, but I did the job for an heir. Can't have a kingdom without an heir, right? However you get him."

"Men and gods are not so different in this way," Loki agrees. "An heir at any cost." 

"Aye," Thor agrees reluctantly. "But our mother," he says with slight emphasis, "she nursed us both, wanted us both. Raised us from infancy. She is the only mother, only parent, we require." 

"So, what's the occasion for the visit?" Clint asks, clearly done with the polite preliminaries "Thor said gifts." 

"I believe I said gifts as well," Loki says, mildly affronted in spite of himself. 

"There's gifts?" Tony leans his arms on the table, suddenly interested again. 

"Gifts which were not meant for mortals." Loki glances to the side, noting the unusual blandness of Thor's expression. 

"Aye, not for mortals," Thor agrees, and because he is Thor, and Loki is Loki, Loki patiently waits for the catch. He really doesn't have long to wait. "It is fortunate then that my companions are true heroes." 

Loki raises his eyebrows. He doubts any protest that they are mortal heroes will make much difference. He tries anyway. "Mortal heroes." 

"Heroes nonetheless." 

"Do you know what they're talking about?" Barton asks Natasha. 

She shrugs, face carefully neutral. Her eyes, disturbingly enough, remain on Loki. He barely had anything to do with this! 

"I doubt our father would approve," Loki says, voice scrupulously mild. 

"Perhaps you have not spent enough time with him of late," Thor answers. "I have heard tell of great change in Asgard. Truly, it has been as if the Allfather was born anew." 

And here is where Tony could swear Loki kicks Thor under the table. 

"Or has merely gone senile." 

"Then we had best use his temporary insanity to our benefit, brother." Thor smiles broadly, winningly, engagingly. 

Loki looks like he's eaten a lemon. He pushes his chair back and waves a hand, preemptively absolving himself of it all. "Well, don't come crying to me when the bifrost opens up and swallows you all whole for your presumption. I've been in chains before the Allfather. I hardly recommend it." 

Tony's eyes follow Loki out the door, and he tunes out the general chatter. "Is he actually playing fetch with Lucky?" 

Nobody seems inclined to answer him, since things have suddenly gotten loud around Thor. Tony decides to wait for things to settle down without him in the middle of them for a change. It's simple logic. If he's not there, they can't blame him for anything gone wrong. 

Right? 

Right 

He pushes the door open, and has all his suspicions confirmed. That is one God of Mischief, playing fetch with Barton's one-eyed mutt. Soggy tennis ball and all. "I never pegged you for the dogs type." 

"Oh?" Loki doesn't look surprised to see him. But then, he's not sure he's ever seen Loki look surprised outside of Hulk turning him into a one-man floor crater. 

"You strike me more as a cat guy." 

"I enjoy cats well enough." 

Tony waits for Loki to say something disturbing like 'on toast with my tea' but he doesn't. "Huh," Tony says, taking the ball Lucky offers him with a grimace. "So you're an animal lover. I never would have guessed." He throws the tennis ball up the platforms, and Lucky catches it in the air on the rebound. 

"Not all animals," Loki says. 

"Oh?" 

"I find ravens insufferable." Loki takes the ball and throws it. "You can't trust them." 

"I can't say I've ever had a conversation with one." 

"Count yourself fortunate." Loki snatches the ball from Lucky and holds it high in the air, stepping smoothly to this side and that when Lucky jumps for it. 

"Aw, come on. Give the dog a break." 

"He enjoys it. It's all part of the game." Loki dances to the side, brushing off a paw and pretending to throw the ball. 

Lucky is not fooled 

"See that? He's smart. And you're taking advantage of him being short. I call that cheating." 

Loki snorts, passing the ball from one outstretched hand to another. "I call it playing."

Tony ignores the fact that Lucky seems to agree with Loki and steps up to defend the honor Barton's dog is too dumb to defend himself. "Come on, Dungeons and Dragons. Gimme the ball." 

Loki flips the ball to his opposite hand, backing away from Tony. "Is this not taking advantage of your short stature, as well?" 

"No," Tony says, making a jump for the ball. "This is two short guys teaming up to win." 

He misses the ball, but he collides with Loki in a twinkle of pale blue light and a vastly understated 'plip'. 

The ball drops to the ground and Lucky snatches it up with a yelp of triumph. 

Followed by a "Whuf?" of confusion. 

He's found the ball, but there's nobody there to throw it for him anymore. 

 

Orange hills roll forever under a purple sky. Blue whirls of dust creep over the jutting green rocks and disappear like mirages. 

Tony has a very, very bad feeling they are not mirages. "I would like it stated," he says, "for the record, before I stupidly risk my life by blaming all of this on you, that I do not like any of this." He makes a sweeping gesture to the landscape. 

Loki only replies with a long look Tony can't get a handle on. 

"What?" He demands. 

"I am waiting for you to stupidly risk your life by accusing me of porting you to - " Loki hesitates and picks up a pinch of sand. He tastes it and grimaces at the sour-bitter tang of sulfured iron. "the furthest poles of Muspelheim." He curses under his breath and resists the childish urge to kick at the heavy sand. "Well?" he demands, every bit as irritated at the situation as Tony. 

"This is your fault," Tony says, stabbing a finger in Loki's direction. He's never been one to back down on a promise. Why start now? 

Loki glowers at him and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and folding his arms tightly against his chest, head tipped down. He hopes he isn't making a habit of this honesty thing. "You may not be entirely wrong." 

"Of course I'm not." Tony pushes off against the sand only to shout and fall back, clutching at his leg. "Get it off! Get it off!" He scoots backwards in the sand, but that does nothing to dislodge the spined and fanged creature attached to his calf. 

And it does absolutely nothing to assist Loki with helping him at all. "Hold still, and I would be more than happy to do so." Loki aims another stomp at the whining creature only to earn a kick in the shin with Tony's booted foot for his trouble. "Hold still!" This time, he lands his boot on Tony's leg, trapping it. 

Ignoring the pained cry, Loki wraps his hand in the end of his coat and rips the hedgehog of the damned from Tony's leg before crushing it underfoot. 

"What the hell was that?" Tony is breathing hard, apparently still influenced enough by adrenaline not to feel the blood coursing from his wounded leg. 

"Hell indeed," Loki agrees. "Beyond that, I do not know." He toes it with his boot and then crouches to pry open its jaws with his knives. "Some type of native rodent." He curses again, careful not to puncture the newly uncovered venom gland. He carves it free and encloses it in a sphere of bright green, spiriting it away in his robes. "Come. We should move away from here before your blood attracts more." 

"More? There's more now?" Tony does not resist Loki's grip on his elbows, though he keeps his weight off his injured leg. 

"I don't know," Loki admits again. "Did you want to remain here and find out?" 

Tony freezes at the words, looking for all the world as if he's sniffing the air for danger with his useless human nose. "Absolutely not. Magic us home right now." 

Loki does not answer immediately, but the expression on his face of knit brows and strangely young eyes is eloquent on its own. "I can't." 

"Can't," Tony echoes. "Very funny. I've seen you pop around like a bad special effect, so let's make with the mojo and get out of here." 

Loki grits his teeth, but breathes deeply. "The northern pole of Muspelheim was once used as a prison for the Seiðrmen. They would be left to do battle with each other, as magic users tend to do sooner or later, until the last died of loneliness." 

"I just saw you do magic." 

"Simple tricks," Loki says shortly, growing tired of the discussion. He puts it as plainly as he can: "If I were to attempt teleportation in this place, our bodies would rain down at our destination in pieces." 

Tony tries to put weight on his leg again, and pulls away with a hiss, paling at the pain. "How big are these hypothetical pieces?" 

Loki growls. "They are pieces fragile mortals tend not to recover from." He looks Tony up and down, unimpressed with the minor damage which seems to have rendered him all but useless. "Must I carry you?" 

"Over my dead body," Tony grunts, slinging an unwelcome arm over Loki's shoulders. "Walk, Lassie." 

Loki puts his arm around Tony's waist nonetheless, and quashes the temptation to point out to Tony that he practically is carrying him with every stumbling mortal step and every drag of his injured leg. 

"Where're we going anyway?" Tony grinds out after some minutes of labored breathing and soft grunts of pain. 

"Home," Loki says. 

Tony gives him a look that calls into question Loki's whole little narrative about a prison for magic guys. 

"The long way," Loki explains. "We may not magic ourselves home, but there is a crack we may slip through between the worlds if it still remains." 

"How long," Tony manages, digging his fingers into Loki's shoulder and pretty much just trying not to think of deserts and dunes and stumbling through sand, "since you've been?" 

"Hundreds of years," Loki says, stopping and setting a protesting Tony down on a rock. "This isn't going to work." 

"Make it work, buddy," Tony grimaces, trying to gain leverage with his bad leg. "I wouldn't want to be you coming back to earth without me." 

"There were times when mortals had faith in the gods." 

"Yeah, well, call me crazy, but it's hard to have faith in a god who personally tried to kill me." 

Loki snorts, shimmers, and snorts again, baring long, sharp teeth in an equine mouth. "Let's consider that a little test of faith then, shall we?" He edges closer to the rock Tony's on, nudging him with his nose to climb upon it. He has no saddle, but his transformed coat works well enough for a blanket and reins. 

"This is really weird, you know," Tony mutters under his breath, hauling his bad leg over Loki's withers with a bitten off groan. But that is not the sound that worries Loki at the moment, so much as the soft skitter across sand following Tony's trail of blood. 

"Quickly," Loki says, trying to nudge Tony faster with a turn of his head. "The creatures are following your blood, and unless you would give them another serving, we must be going. Now." 

"I'm not exactly taking my time back here." Tony bites out the words, shifting awkwardly until Loki feels him settle. "Fine. Go." 

"Lie against my neck," Loki instructs him. 

"Uh, no," Tony says with the predictable calculations of a man and his manhood. 

"Fragile mortal." Loki snorts, stamps at the first creature to reach his rear hooves, and breaks directly into a gallop, relishing the yelp of pained surprise from his passenger. "I once ran an entire night's chase through the woods of Asgard without tiring," he says, voice caught on the wind. 

"Great for you!" Tony grips more tightly around Loki's neck, spread long across his back and ducking his face against flying mane. "We get out of this alive, and I will totally enter you in the Kentucky Derby. Win that, and we'll go for a hat trick." 

Loki won't deny that there is a temptation there to unleash the arrogance of a god and remind Tony that he is not a mere mortal steed to race for men's pleasure. But the temptation is greater to race for their absolute consternation. "Very well," he agrees. "But only I choose my jockey." 

"You agreed?" Tony would have more to say, but his lungs have more pressing responsibilities. 

"Did you mishear me?" 

"So much weirder than I ever expected." 

Loki laughs into the wind. "It has been some time since I have been invited to fool so many." 

Tony manages to raise his head just long enough to say, "Do you think you could possibly stop enjoying this so much?"

Only Loki's laughter on the blue-tinted wind and the thud of his hoofbeats reply. 

 

"Thor, I hate to say it, but I might just agree with Loki here." Steve holds his apple a lot like a grenade. Natasha can't say she blames him. "These weren't meant for humans. And believe me when I say I've got some experience with what happens when you try to make super-powered humans." 

"Not super," Thor disagrees, elbows on his knees and his most earnest expression. "Godly." 

"Had some negative experiences there, too," Steve answers, ready to put the apple down. 

"Aye," Thor agrees, staying his hand. "This is why the apples have always been only for the most worthy, the heroes." 

Natasha shrugs, successfully dodging Thor's hand to put down her apple. "That leaves me out." 

Bruce has already put his down. "And me. Are you sure you want to give the other guy access to even more power?" 

"It is possible the apple will grant you more control over him," Thor says. He looks around at all of them, surprised to find only Clint without a skeptical expression on his face. Clint is simply tossing the apple from hand to hand with a patient look. 

Thor looks around the circle of them in Tony's living room. "Do any of you know why the golden apples have been given to men in times past?" 

"Bad gatekeeping?" Natasha mirrors Thor's position and raises an eyebrow. 

"Occasionally," Thor acknowledges. "When they were given by the gods, it was to provide men with protectors." He catches Sam's pensive expression in the corner of his eye. "Avengers, if you will." 

"And who are you to decide on these protectors?" Steve asks. 

"A god," Thor answers the simple question simply. "The apples were obtained from the rightful king of Asgard for the protection of Midgard." 

"And he just, what? Handed them over?" Steve turns the apple in his hands, and gives it a sniff. 

"At my persuasion," Thor says. "Please, my friends. Take this gift in the spirit in which it is meant. Eat of Asgard and become near-invulnerable protectors of Mankind." 

Bruce raises his hand this time, waiting for Thor to notice him. "Speaking as a guy who's more or less invulnerable already, tell us about the exit clause." 

"Exit - " 

"The way out," Natasha clarifies. "One of us can't handle it anymore, is there a way out?" 

"Death," Thor clarifies to Bruce's reluctant nod and Natasha's raised eyebrows. "Death comes to us all in time," he says. "We are not immortal. Only nigh invulnerable. We can be killed. We can age. We can die." 

Clint shrugs and polishes the apple on his shirt. "Well, I've had enough of almost dying for a while, so," he toasts with the apple, "here goes nothing." The crunch as he bites into the apple is almost as mouth-watering as the scent, and he closes his eyes. "Good apple, Thor. Like, really good." 

Thor chuckles. "The sweetest apple in the nine realms." 

"The other realms have apples?" Bruce asks, drawing their intention momentarily. 

"Yes?" Thor turns an apple in his hands. "Is it so strange?" 

Steve sighs at last, rolling the apple between his palms. "Nothing is strange anymore. Just - absolutely nothing." He takes a resolute bite. "Nothing," he emphasizes after swallowing. 

As if Steve's cue is what the others have been waiting for, all but Bruce take a cautious bite of their apples.

"Will you join your comrades?" Thor asks Bruce more quietly, giving the others a small amount of privacy in which to experience the taste of Idunn's golden apples for the first time. It amuses him that all but Clint and Sam attempt to hide their small sounds of pleasure. 

"This gift," Bruce says, picking up the apple and turning it over in his hands. "It sounds more like a privilege." 

"And a burden," Thor agrees. "Some would say a glorious purpose. But to be an Avenger is to have made this vow already." 

Bruce looks uncomfortably at the apple. "I'm a scientist." 

"Are you not curious then? Think of the things you could do if you were immune to human disease and suffering?" 

"I don't want to be immune to suffering." Bruce puts the apple down again and flexes his fingers. "Listen, can I make this decision on my own time, and maybe in private?" 

Thor lays a hand on his shoulder. "Aye. The team will think no less of you regardless of your decision." 

"Thanks, and - uh - does it have to be the whole apple?" 

"No. They are large," Thor says, as Clint sets down the stem, all that's left of his apple. "But eating the seeds is thought to be beneficial." 

"Great," Bruce mutters, standing up. "Because eating the seeds of immortal fruit never goes badly." He raises his voice to the others. "Tell Tony he can find me in the lab when he comes in. I'd like to run a few tests before I decide." 

"Sure," Clint says, trying to be subtle in flexing his muscles as if to test any potential new strength. "And, um, if I say we have an issue, is this going to be a problem before the apples kick in? Because we may have an issue." 

"They do not kick in," Thor corrects him. "Your strength and stamina will - " 

"What problem?" Steve asks, second to finish, placing his stem next to Clint's and speaking over Thor, because someone has to, and he's tired of talking about apples. 

"My dog lost Tony and Loki." He gestures to the platform where Lucky sits, nose pressed to the window glass fogging up around the tennis ball in his mouth. 

 

Loki's hooves clatter to a stop on a long-cooled lava flow of emerald and teal and what looks like it might be some kind of opal. "We stop here for the night." 

Tony lifts his head from its relatively safe place against Loki's neck with a groan. "You really know how to pick the Grand Hyatt of Muspelheim." 

Loki gives his back a shake, causing Tony to clutch wildly at his mane so he lands on his foot, not his ass. "I know to choose a resting place where no living thing dwells." Loki shakes again, and stands before Tony in the clothing he was wearing when they disappeared from his tower. 

"Neat trick," Tony says. "Where do the clothes go?" 

Loki tilts his head. "I transform from man to horse, and it is my clothing that concerns you?" 

Tony shrugs. "It looks like a useful trick, just saying. A guy could use an invisible pocket dimension for a change of clothes now and then." 

Loki gives a suspiciously horse-like snort of amusement as he begins pacing across the lava flow. "Are you a man who finds himself without clothing frequently?" 

"More often than you'd think given my social status," Tony answers because it's easier than focusing on the throbbing in his leg. And his ass. And his thighs. And pretty much everywhere. He works at a cramp in his hand. "But I know a guy who puts my clothing related issues to shame. And you could stand to do him a solid." 

Loki stops his pacing and turns to look at Tony in bemused silence. "Your Hulk?" 

"Bruce," Tony corrects. 

"Bruce," Loki echoes tentatively. "Hmm. You might be right about the benefits inherent in offering him a no-strings-attached gift like that." 

"I'm always right," Tony insists. "And speaking of gifts, what am I missing out on right now for the pleasure of this guided horseback tour of Muspelheim?" 

"Nothing much," Loki says. "Only immortality, invulnerability, the stamina of a god." 

"Very funny." 

"There. We will rest in that bowl." Loki points to the near-horizon and Tony squints. 

"And if you think I'm walking that far, you've gone beyond funny, all the way to hilari- ouch!" Tony yelps, but has better sense than to squirm, when Loki lifts him in a Fireman's carry and picks his way across the uneven ground as if it was a New York sidewalk.

"I have no intention of making you walk," Loki says. "I can smell the venom eating at your flesh from here." He wrinkles his nose. "As you would be able to if you had eaten Idunn's apple as you were supposed to instead of following me outdoors." 

"Wait - you're serious about the apple thing?" Tony asks, because it would be just his luck to get as far as he has, survive as much as he has, only to die here because he chose playing fetch with a crazy god and Barton's dog instead of staying on his comfortable couch and eating the fruit of immortality. He groans. "Fuck." 

"I promised to bring you home alive if I am able, and I will keep that promise," Loki reminds him, and he's even actually careful lowering Tony to the ground inside a depression in the lava flow. The sunless light casting deeper shadows in the hollow. 

Tony's got a few questions for whoever designed this world, but now's not really the time to ask them. 

"I would prefer not to leave your leg behind," Loki adds. 

Tony takes a shuddering breath and rubs his hands over his face. "That sounds like a really fantastic plan, you know that?" 

Loki hmms, and Tony feels the laces on his too-tight boot abruptly loosen. He opens his eyes to find Loki picking out the remains of the laces, a small knife held casually between middle and ring fingers. 

He casts a glance at Tony's pale face, assessing as his fingers tug off the sock and work their way under the tightened leg of his trousers. It is only when his fingertips meet the hot-damp skin of his upper calf, rough with clotted blood that Tony jerks and hisses, clutching at his own biceps. He forces his breathing slower, deeper, but he does not open his eyes. "How are your nerves?" 

"On fire, thanks," Tony grits out, continuing with the breathing and opening his eyes to stare determinedly at the sky. "Let's get this over with." 

"It may be broken," Loki warns him. 

"Yeah, probably from the time you stomped on my leg with the heel of your boot. Remember that?" 

Loki levels him with an unimpressed look. "If I had not ceased your flailing long enough to rip the thing from your skin, you would have suffered worse than a broken leg and envenomed flesh wound. Now shush." 

Tony does not shush. And he wouldn't be Tony Stark if he did shush. "You know, strangely enough, this is not the first time I've undergone highly questionable surgical practices in a desert wasteland." 

"I see you survived."  
"Call me a survivor." Tony bites off a grunt, resolutely not looking at whatever Loki's doing now that he's got the lower half of his jeans leg cut off. The air is cold on his leg, and he can't quite decide if that's a good thing or not. "It's what I do. I survive things. And then, apparently, because the world just cannot leave well enough alone, I get into more trouble I have to survive. It's a pattern in my life." 

A laugh escapes Loki in spite of himself. "You could have done worse for yourself this time. I specialize in saving the skins of hot-headed fools who rush into trouble without thinking."

"Hey, I think. I think a lot. Some people even say I over - ow! Okay. Ow, ow, no - I am putting my foot down and saying - fuck! Goddamn, Loki!" He manages to wrest his leg free by rolling away from Loki, curling up around his injury and panting. "What the actual fuck?" 

Loki holds out his hand. In his palm lies a bloodied shining black shard and a puddle of yellowish-clear liquid. "Your friend left you a parting souvenir." He glances at Tony's leg and reaches his free hand to first straighten it and then elevate it on the edge of their stone nest. "I recommend we remove as much of the damaged flesh as we are able." 

"And when you say remove -"

Loki tips a bowl of water, pulled from nowhere, over the wound, ignoring Tony's hiss in favor of the bubbling of the water in contact with envenomed flesh. "The venom will continue to destroy your tissues unless we remove it." Tony can feel Loki's hand resting gently on his knee above the fiery agony that is his lower leg. "I am sorry." 

"Contrary to my little hissy fit earlier, I suspect you're not actually responsible for all of this - for once. So - " 

Loki cracks a smile. "No. I suspect this was my father's work. A curse to prevent me laying a finger on an innocent Midgardian. I suppose he did not think it through long enough to conclude what would happen to that Midgardian in contact with me when I was forcibly removed from the area." 

"And this guy's the king?" 

"He is very old," Loki says, secretly pleased by the unimpressed tone in Tony's voice. "No. I am sorry because, in a fit of pique, I gave Thor all the apples. I should have known better than to part with them all, even for a good cause." 

"Wait - exactly how much are you carrying around in those weird pocket dimensions?" 

Loki tips a smile. "I don't have a tent and cot upon my person at the moment, if that's what you're asking." 

"While that sounds so amazingly great right now, I sort of want to cry at the thought, I was actually planning to ask about food. And more of that water you dropped on me, assuming it was actually water, and not the acid it felt like." 

"It was water," Loki confirms. He reaches into his coat again, this time pulling out a round, dark-brown cookie thing. "Eat it slowly. I do not know how a fragile mortal body will respond to Asgardian traveling food." 

"Please. You wouldn't believe some of the things I've eaten in my day." Tony takes a bite and immediately chokes, cheeks puffing out dramatically before he can cough the sudden overflowing mouthful into his hand. "What the actual fuck?" 

Loki breaks off a small corner of the biscuit and pops it into his mouth, where it expands to a proper mouthful of food, and chews. "I did warn you." 

"No. You vaguely challenged my fragile mortal ego," Tony contradicts him with narrowed eyes. "You knew I'd do that." 

Loki's face is immobile. "How could I possibly?" He follows the Lembas bread from hell with a finely decorated wineskin. He offers it. "Here. A peace offering." 

Tony gives him a long look, but takes the skin, twisting off the stopper and sniffing at it this time before he's about to let it into his mouth. "Booze?" 

"Made of the finest leaves and grains produced by Vanaheim, distilled by virgin maids, and aged in the deepest caves where blind monks turn the casks on the night of every full moon." 

Tony stops sniffing. "Okay, now I know you're shitting me." 

Loki snickers. "Embellishing, perhaps. No virgins or blind monks are involved, I'm afraid. And precious little aging. It is, I believe, what you would call moonshine." 

Tony takes a cautious sip. "Not bad." He tips the flask back for a longer drink, and closes his eyes with a happy sigh. "I'm going to buy Vanaheim and market the shit out of this stuff." 

"Vanaheim is an entire world, Tony. You cannot buy worlds." 

"If I believe you, I'm going to be immortal. Give me enough time and motivation, I can buy anything." He clutches the skin close and leans his head back, a flush already standing out on his cheeks. "And I will buy all the worlds if I want to." 

"Have you had enough?" 

Tony holds up a hand and takes a long swig, throat working, because the whole leg thing is still coming, and being blotto for it sounds like the best idea he's had in at least a week. "Okay," he pants, wiping away a droplet that escaped down his chin. He passes the flask back to Loki. "Yeah. Your turn." 

"Thank you," Loki says, and then upends the flask over Tony's leg, and holds him down until his howl of agony dies to a dazed whimper. "Now, we begin." 

 

Thor keeps close to Clint, who is attempting to convince Lucky to track the scent of their missing comrades. Unfortunately, Lucky is more interested, it seems, in playing fetch. "It's no good," he finally says, giving in and taking the ball from Lucky's mouth. He throws it across the roof. "Their scent is everywhere." 

"Aye, and Jarvis is seldom wrong," Thor agrees, having left the room once Jarvis confirmed to Steve what Thor already knew: Loki and Tony have vanished from this world. 

"Technology isn't the only way to find people," Clint says, lips set in a stubborn line. "You can fool technology. You can't fool a dog's nose. I don't care what Tony says. The Mythbusters proved it." 

Thor isn't sure what to reply to that, but makes a mental note to find out what a Mythbuster is, and if he should be concerned about them. Fortunately, he is saved from the awkwardness of inter-world communications by the return of Steve. And company. "Welcome home, friend," he says to Steve's returned shadow, expecting no more, and receiving no more than a glance and a nod. 

"Bucky's sources haven't turned up anything. Natasha came up empty with SHIELD, and Pepper's going to knock our door down if we don't start answering her phone calls," Steve says, and looks, momentarily, every bit of his ninety human years. "Rhodey even checked with the Pentagon. And we've got nothing." 

"You've got magic," Thor corrects, aware of dark eyes staring intently into his face as he speaks. 

"I don't believe in magic," Bucky says, at last. 

Thor raises his eyebrows. "You have not told him, then?" 

"Told me what?" 

Steve opens his mouth and shuts it again without a word. He passes a hand through his hair and squints up at the top of Avengers Tower above them. "I may have done a stupid thing," Steve says. 

Before Thor can defend Steve's life choices, a metal arm smacks Steve upside the back of his head. "You always do stupid things." It's fascinating to watch the way Steve hunches and tucks his hands into his pockets in response. The way the embarrassed smile he throws Bucky's way always reaches his eyes. 

"You're a stupid thing," Steve mutters under his breath, trying and failing to hide a smile, and Thor abandons the last of his belief that Steve Rogers is an uncomplicated man. 

"Starks always were a terrible influence on you." Bucky gives Steve's shoulder a gentle shove. "What did he get you into this time?" 

"Tony had nothing to do with it," Natasha says, joining the group. She tilts her head in acknowledgement of Bucky's long, silent stare. "This time." 

"Any conclusions from the science end of things?" Steve asks Bruce, surreptitiously leaning against Bucky's human arm. 

"Magic," Bruce sighs the sigh of a scientist confronted with the increasing prevalence of the impossible. "I mean, physics is Tony's thing, but Jarvis can't even account for the missing mass. Which should technically be impossible." 

He looks as he always looks, as do they all, regardless of the apples. Thor is unaccustomed to all this patience. Even if for a good cause, it suits him ill. "If it is magic, have faith in Loki, my friends. None in the nine realms are as skilled as he in its arts." 

"No offense, Thor, but you've always been a little biased when it comes to Loki." 

"I stake my life on it," Thor says, and means it. "If magic is all that stands between them and their safe return, our best course of action is to take care and await their arrival."

"We can't do nothing," Clint says, lifting his eyes from the ground. "They disappeared. Like that." He snaps his fingers. 

Lucky lifts his head, cocked to one side as he listens to his master. 

"And they will return the same," Thor says with the conviction of faith. "If you must do something, make their excuses. Honor their privacy, and protect them from the media storm sure to follow any sign that Tony Stark has gone missing." 

Clint snorts. "Privacy, right. So we're giving up is what you're saying." 

"There is no giving up where there is nothing left to do," Thor says, with the hard-earned wisdom of the past many years. 

"I've got a few more contacts I can call in," Natasha says. 

"I'll call Pepper," Steve volunteers, too quickly, turning on his heel, Bucky following. 

Clint pats his leg, still staring at Thor. When Lucky presses his nose into Clint's hand, he earns himself a scratch behind the ears. Still scratching, Clint says, "Lucky? Go find Tony." 

Lucky rrfs, standing on his hind legs to lick Clint's face, and bounds away across the pad back to the spot where he and Clint stopped searching before. Nose to the ground, he circles twice, and then shuffles off toward the end of the landing pad, tail wagging. 

"Clint," Thor says, not without sympathy, as he lays an arm across Clint's shoulders. He stops talking when Clint sharply raises a hand. 

"I can't do nothing," he explains. "I've got to do something. Even something I know isn't going to work, okay? I can't live with myself if I don't do something." 

Thor watches the dog in silence. "I understand," he says, after a time. 

"Good," Clint says, not moving away from the arm or towards it. "Because I think he may have found it." 

Lucky's head is up, sniffing the air, then returns to the ground. He circles again, the passes growing smaller with each circle until he stops, crouches, backs up a handful of steps, and with a bunching of muscles, throws himself into the air. 

Where he disappears with a 'plip' and the tiniest rain of blue sparkles.

 

Tony does not sleep so much as pass out. When he wakes, its to Loki plying him with water and more of that booze, then lifting him up, and - he'll just pretend the memory of the God of Chaos carting him off for a whiz away from their sleeping spot before returning him and tucking him into a coat that smells like smoke and weird herbs is gone in the blackout drunk along with everything else he can't remember. 

His brain has always been selective like that. 

And now he's neither passed out nor trying to be passed out, and is undeniably awake. He could ask a stupid question like 'where are we?' except a) he knows the answer and b) Loki's not there. 

He'd panic or something except he's still got Loki's coat, and he's pretty sure Loki isn't going anywhere without his coat. He'd miss all the pocket dimensions. 

Tony slips a curious hand into one of the internal pockets and jerks it back abruptly upon contact with something vaguely slimy. He wipes his hand on the outside back and shivers down into the fabric and leather, out of the breeze. 

"Face it," he says to himself, just to hear something other than the incessant scratch of debris and the faint whine he's realized he can hear whenever that weird blue dust eddies around. "This isn't the worst situation you've ever been in." 

It's not comforting. 

"It isn't?" Loki asks, appearing at the sound of Tony's voice. From the angle, it looks like he's just leaning over. Upon further assessment, Tony realizes he can smell something cooking. It's neither familiar nor good. But his stomach rumbles anyway. 

"No," Tony says, grateful he can sit up on his own, and unwilling to test the banked fires of his calf on any kind of movement just yet. "It's not. It's in the top ten, mind you." 

"Hmm." Loki turns whatever he's got on that spit, and looks up into the sky. There's moons there now. Three of them. "It's not even in my top hundred." 

"Show off," Tony grumbles, leaning awkwardly on the edge of the crater, or whatever this hole in the ground is meant to be. "What's cooking?"

"A bird," Loki says, gesturing to the remainder of a pile of bloodied brown and gray feathers a short distance away. "There are very few species of venomous birds anywhere." 

"Well, really, who needs venom when you've got talons and a sharp beak?" Tony asks. It does not smell like chicken. He's grimly aware it probably won't taste like it either. 

"Indeed," Loki agrees, and Tony could swear he was glaring at the thing.

"It's already dead." Tony grunts, trying to haul himself into a more upright and comfortable pose and grits his teeth on a groan the moment his injured leg slides over the ground. "Shit, fuck, fuck, fuck," he grinds out, gripping the edge of the rock and breathing in the perfume of cooked stink bird. "I'll bet you're going to tell me this is a delicacy on this world," Tony says, to forestall any other line of conversation which might include the state of his leg. 

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. 

"Well, a world," Loki agrees, removing the bird from the blue-green flames of the fire and sniffing at it. He puts it back into the heat. "If this is the species I suspect, the people of Alfheim are fond of its meat smoked over a period of weeks." 

"Well, smoked. Anything tastes better smoked." Tony runs his tongue over his teeth. They're scummy, but not sticking to his lips. He's pretty sure they should be sticking to his lips along with the mother of all hangovers. He decides that whatever care happened in that blackout can stay in that blackout. 

"The flesh dissolves into a gel under the effects of the smoke," Loki says, again, providing information Tony could have gladly lived the rest of his life without knowing. 

"How's it taste medium-rare?" 

"Disgusting," Loki says. 

"You know what? I'll just have another of those cookie things." 

"You will not," Loki says, pulling the bird from the heat at last and setting it on a flat rock he's procured for himself somewhere. "You need the meat if you are to recover from your blood loss." 

"Cookie," Tony says, aware he sounds absurdly like a child, but he's pretty sure Loki's never heard of Lembas bread. 

Loki arches an eyebrow at him and pushes his hair out of his face with the back of one wrist. "They are made for Asgardians. For all we know, I've been poisoning you." 

"For all we know, that will poison me," Tony argues, pointing an accusatory finger at the singed bird. 

Loki ignores the accusation and peels back the skin, slicing a piece of meat from what Tony guesses is the breast and handing it to him. "Eat, Tony. I've given you the mildest part." 

Tony sniffs at it and wishes he hadn't. He sighs. "You'd better have more of that booze handy. I'm going to want to get the taste of this out of my mouth the moment I'm done eating." 

"I do," Loki says, "and you may. Now eat. We have a long day ahead of us again." 

"Super." Tony takes a bite and doesn't (quite) gag on it. He forces it down and follows it with another. There's a weird spicy funk to the meat, and he's grateful it's so hot because the more he eats, the less he tastes. "Why aren't you eating?" he demands around a mouthful. 

Loki holds up one of the damn Asgardian cookies. "I have eaten. And I am not injured." 

"Fine. It'd be weird watching a horse eat meat anyway." 

"I am not a horse." 

Tony gives Loki a look of challenge with both eyebrows. "Could've fooled me yesterday." 

"I merely have the form of a horse available to me." 

"You have any other forms we should know about?" 

"A horse, a fox, a snake," Loki says. "That is all you would recognize."

"I can see why you chose the horse," Tony admits. 

"It was the fox who caught you your breakfast," Loki says, as if this is normal conversation. 

"Yeah, yeah, and the snake who offered me an apple." Tony swallows another piece of not-chicken. "Oh, wait, you don't have any apples. That's why I'm eating alien squab and bleeding out."

"You are not bleeding out." Loki hands him another piece as soon as he's through swallowing. "Your cells were slowly dying from the venom before I removed the contaminated flesh from your bones, and the blood has stopped. You will recover." It sounds like an order. 

Tony swallows tightly and renews his resolve not to look at his leg until this is all over. "You know, I should probably thank you for all of this not leaving me to die on an alien world thing. I realize I might still die, but, you know, thanks for not leaving me to it."

Loki could say 'I'm not doing it for you' or countless other deflections. Instead, he nods. "You're welcome." He places the stone slab and the meal of bird on Tony's lap and sets the wineskin next to him. "Finish your meal."

"I don't want to die," Tony admits, putting another piece of the meat in his mouth. 

"Good," Loki says, picking up his coat and swinging it on. "Death is such a waste." 

 

Death is looking like a slightly better option hours later, and far off course after manfully running away from (hopefully) the only thing alive enough out here to eat them. Tony has given up on pride and clings to Loki's neck like the maiden in the fairy tale. He always hated fairy tales. "In hindsight," he says, "booze was not the best choice of anesthetic."

"Hung over, are we?"

"We are so hung over," Tony groans into Loki's side. 

"But are you thinking of your leg?"

Tony considers it, immediately regretting doing so, as his leg is all too willing to remind him its there, and it's not happy with him. "Please stop doing that." 

"Doing what?" Loki asks with perfect innocence. 

"Helping me while also not helping me," Tony complains, although he is aware that the help has outweighed all of the negatives so far. 

"You noticed, did you?" 

"Is this some kind of ancient Norse game I'm unaware of?" Tony grouses, so far past finding a conversation with a horse the least bit strange. 

Loki sighs, shaking out his mane and continuing at a steady walk. "There is a reason I am the God of Mischief and Chaos, Tony. It isn't just a title, it's what I am." 

"So when you were trying to take over the world - " Tony stops himself when Loki gives a warning buck underneath him. 

"Chaos. Warped and misshapen by circumstance as it was, chaos." Loki shakes his mane again before making an irritated noise. "Scratch my neck, would you? It feels as if there's a burr at the base of my mane." 

Tony's scratching at the mane before he can take the time to think about it, and by then, he might as well go with it. Loki's a pretty great horse, actually. Tony appreciates horses. "I'll grant you that," Tony says once he's worked the itch out of Loki's skin. "The chaos, I mean. You made a lot more chaos than progress." 

"Mmm hmm," Loki replies, drawing out the sound. "Peculiar how that worked out, isn't it?" 

"So basically, Thor was right all along," Tony says, just to take a little of the smugness out of Loki's tone. 

"Would you like to walk on your own two feet?" Loki asks him. "Oh, that's right. You can't. And it's a very long way to hop. So be nice to the horse, shall we?" 

Tony takes that as a very roundabout way of admitting that yes, Thor was right, and Loki was in a bad place, and never call Thor right about everything in Loki's presence ever again. Tony laughs under his breath and gives Loki's neck a pat. 

"That's very familiar of you," Loki says. 

"Really? I thought horses liked pats on the neck." It's been Tony's experience, anyway. Pats on the neck, nose rubs, a good currying, and treats. He thinks about rubbing Loki's nose, and has to muffle another laugh. 

"Well, yes," Loki admits. "But it's not funny." 

"No. Nothing funny about neck pats whatsoever," Tony agrees. "Nose rubs, on the other hand." 

"I will bite your fingers off." 

"I give great nose rubs, pal." 

Loki huffs, and breaks back into a canter, signaling an end to this particular chat. "We shall see." 

 

Tony hasn't died of exposure, Godly trek mix, or whatever's going on in what's left of his leg (not thinking about it), but he's sure he could use at least a month of solid rest on the beach with a steady stream of drinks and maybe a nice breeze. 

He's too dazed to ask 'what the what?' when he feels hands gently coaxing him off Loki's rump (because whose hands if Loki's a horse, and when did he end up all the way back on the rump), but he's gathered enough wits to prop himself up on his elbows and take a good look around. "It's Tuesday. This must be Muspelheim." 

Loki looks over his shoulder at Tony, and smiles. "At least we haven't damaged your sense of humor." 

"All my senses are intact. Humor, danger, common decency, honor, and responsibility." Tony ticks each of the five off on his fingers. He spreads his hands at Loki's skeptical look. "I didn't say I listen to them all the time."

"You are a hero, are you not?" 

"Ehh," Tony says, waggling one of his hands back and forth. "I'm a default hero. Basically, I'm the only guy who can do what I do, and I'm doing it basically for good, and occasionally for my own sense of grandeur - which I also still have by the way - and sometimes just to have a good time. If that makes me a hero, so be it." 

Loki looks to be considering all of that. "I believe the title applies." 

"Dandy," Tony says, and folds his arms behind his head, lying back on the rock. "So, what do we run away from next?" 

"Nothing," Loki says with enough conviction, Tony's willing to believe him. "There is no reason for predators to roam the flows, and we are considerably deeper in than we were last time." 

"Super," Tony says, doing the gentlemanly thing and not pointing out that thing with all the legs Loki trampled into the bedrock like so much jam this morning. "So where are we actually going?" 

Loki squats next to him, elbows resting on his knees. "That way," he gestures in the direction they've been headed with the point of his chin. "There will be a vortex of cooled rock, and within the pit, our exit." 

"So if it's that easy, what's keeping all the natives from dropping through?" 

Loki rakes his hands through his hair which, up close and personal, looks a lot like that mane. "I did not say easy." 

"There be dragons, huh?" 

"What a good guess."

"You're serious." 

"I am serious." Loki hesitates. "Possibly." He throws his hands in the air. "I don't know. There was. Once. And as it's quite warm at the bottom, I wouldn't be surprised if she was still there, or perhaps her young." 

"An actual dragon." 

"As opposed to an imaginary dragon?" 

"Hey, I haven't had a lot of experience with mythological beasts outside of amusement parks and movie theaters." 

"You have been riding a mythological beast for two days now, and sleeping with one curled up beneath you as a pillow." 

"I what, now?" Tony feels behooved to ask at the mischievous look on Loki's face, and he wonders exactly which beast Loki's referring to here. 

Loki only shrugs. "You were delightfully warm." 

"Should I feel violated, here?" 

"Do you?" Loki cocks his head in a way that could be, almost is, flirtatious, and Tony's brain slips a very small gear. 

Weird. 

And yet. "No. I guess, in the grand scheme of the last two days, drunken inter-species cuddling isn't something I can get worked up over." 

"Good." Loki stands and stretches, and Tony wonders what kind of muscle kinks a guy picks up changing from man to horse, much less into a snake. 

"What's mythological about a horse, anyway?" 

"A horse? Nothing at all, unless you've never seen one before. But I, as a horse, am mother of Sleipnir, and he's arguably quite mythological, yet very real."

"The eight-legged Norse horse is real." 

"I pushed him out of my loins myself," Loki confirms. "Eight tiny hooves are undeniably real in those circumstances." 

"I..." 

"Yes?" 

"I think that might be too much information," Tony manages to say at last. 

"I was very young," Loki says. "And very foolish." 

"So, the big world monster thing and the mistress of Hel?" Tony decides to ask, because it feels somehow safer than asking about the 'mother' part and the 'young' part. 

"Older than me," Loki says. "The children of another Loki in another time." 

"Weird." 

"For a human," Loki corrects him. 

"How old are you and Thor, anyway?" Since they're sharing casual conversation, and Tony's more or less certain Loki's not the type to get offended by personal questions after that 'loins' comment. 

"Slightly over a thousand Midgardian years. Nice even number, don't you think?" 

Tony would whistle, but his lips are too dry. "Do you guys get mid-life crises around then? First millennium, and you go out and buy a sporty little goat chariot built for two and seduce a hot young mortal lover." 

"Hmm, now there's an idea," Loki says, eyeing Tony up and down. "I already have the chariot." 

Tony raises an eyebrow at him. "In no way do I even technically qualify as 'young'." 

"Compared to one of my kind, you're barely more than an infant." 

"I'm not sure which one I find more disturbing, honestly." 

"What is it they say in Midgard?" Loki asks. "Age is only a number." 

"Even in Midgard, that's a bad pick up line," Tony says, ignoring the fact he's used it in one form or another since he was fifteen. 

"What would be a better pick up line?" Loki asks, thinking. "Hello, mortal. Do you have a little Norse in you, by any chance?" Loki's face is utterly serious, interested, charming, even. 

"Do I look like I have Norse in me?" Tony gestures to himself. 

"Would you like to?" Loki waggles his eyebrows. 

Tony snorts. "If I'm going to have Norse in me, I'm holding out for more than a little." 

"Please," Loki says. "I am, literally, hung like a horse." 

"You're a mare," Tony points out, finally secure enough in his observations to point out the obvious. 

"And I am a horse," Loki says. "Therefore, I must be hung like one." Irrefutable logic, and yet. "And anyway, I didn't offer," he adds, almost regretfully. "The seduction of mortals is for the likes of Thor. I prefer something a little more lasting." 

"Mortals can do lasting," Tony says. "I mean, not that I'd know personally." 

"A blink," Loki waves his hand, serious again. "One bite from a strange beast and you're at death's door." Tony can't tell if he sounds genuinely unhappy about it or merely inconvenienced at this point. 

"I like to think I'm hanging around the front gate, honestly." Tony folds his arms. "Let's not bury me before I'm cold, ok?" 

Loki looks at him oddly. "I have no intention of burying you at all." 

"Um, death's door?" 

"Merely making a point." Loki scratches at a spot at the edge of his scalp, and Tony wonders if that's the spot he had the burr as a horse. He reaches out and scratches it for Loki, who leans into it unconsciously. 

Tony chuckles. 

"Rub my nose, and I will still bite you," Loki says. 

"Yeah, yeah, Mr. Ed. You're all talk." 

 

"I'm sorry, guys. There's nothing there." Bruce puts down the tablet and scanner, turning to his audience. 

"The hell there isn't." Clint looks ready to throw himself into thin air. "That 'nothing' ate my dog." 

Bruce shakes his head. "It's where Tony and Loki disappeared, and we already checked it. Nothing. Lucky disappears. Nothing again." 

"Jarvis?" Steve asks. 

"Dr. Banner is correct, Captain," Jarvis says as Dummy pokes at the spot in the air, claw clicking and whirring in mild distress. "I will continue monitoring the area. Shall I cordon off the precise location?" 

"Yeah. You do that," Steve says, and a glowing blue cage erupts from the floor, surrounding the mystery spot of nothing in the air. "Thor, you've got to have some kind of resources back home for this." 

"I am sorry, Steve." Thor rests a hand on his shoulder. "Once, I would have called upon my mother, or my brother, but one is dead, and the other..." 

"Dead if he shows up without Tony," Natasha says, without a hint of inflection. 

"And Lucky," Clint adds. 

"I have faith in him," Thor repeats again. "He will defeat this curse." 

"Curse?" 

"What else could it be?" Thor spreads his hands. "He vanished the moment he touched Tony. A curse to prevent him harming another mortal, clearly." 

"But who would curse him?" Steve asks, and immediately wishes he hadn't. "Never mind. I'm just going to pretend I never asked that." 

"Aye," Thor agrees. "There are many who would wait in line with glad hearts for the opportunity." 

"I just want to hit him," Clint says. 

Natasha glances at him curiously. "I thought you two made your peace."

"A man takes his dog seriously, Nat." Clint shoves his hands into his pockets and lifts his chin, because aggression's always worked better than admitting to that empty sad feeling in his chest. "He comes back without Lucky, I'm socking him one, and he has it coming." 

No one disagrees. 

 

Riding Loki across alien worlds (one alien world, anyway) was novel at first, Tony admits. But boredom sets in on even the most novel activity unless there's something around to shake it up. 

Tony regrets ever wishing the boredom would end. 

Deeply, personally, and intensely regrets. 

"Hey," he tries again, shaking Loki's shoulder in the dubious shelter of their tent. The tent Loki wasn't supposed to have on his person here. The god has lain comatose on the floor since throwing Tony to the ground beneath him and covering them with his coat. He's not going to forget the unholy green glow of those eyes when Loki turned the coat into a tent, either. 

By the time he got around to demanding what's up with the magic in no-magic-land, Loki was already out for the count. 

So now it's been - however long in a tent with shuddering walls and eerie blue lights, unfortunately ripe with the smell of Tony's wounded leg and unwashed body. 

"Hey, Loki," Tony pats his hand against Loki's face, wishing the tent had retained those pockets of infinite holding, because splashing water on an unconscious person's face is a thing that works, right? 

That, and holy god, could he use a drink. 

"Loki!" Tony puts his hands on Loki's chest and gives him a full body shake. It achieves nothing but the limp flop of Loki's arm onto the floor of their tent. "Shit." Tony pulls the arm back into position and settles Loki's head more comfortably in his lap so he doesn't choke on his own spit or anything. "Shit," he says again, just for something to hear that isn't a whistle, howl, or rattle. His hands wander through Loki's hair, combing the tangles out of it idly. It's just something to do. 

He needs something to do. 

There's nothing to take apart, even if he had tools to build a view screen to the outside world, or even a periscope. 

It's just him, Loki, and the worst Blair Witch reenactment ever. He creates a camera frame with his hands, just for something to do, and holds it close to his face. "I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them! We're gonna die out here!" 

It's not as funny without an audience to appreciate it. He drops his hands to Loki's (surprisingly silky) hair, smoothing it over his thigh and searching for any tangles he's missed.

And it's REALLY not funny when something whumps against the tent, shaking all the walls at once. A terrible scratching starts up, the outline of claws clear through the leather and fabric tent, even in semi-darkness. Tony spills Loki out of his lap and frantically paws across the interior, renewing a desperate search for one of Loki's invisible pockets. Or even a visible one. 

He yanks off his shoe as the scratching grows more frantic along the bottom of the tent along with loud, huffing breath. 

Tony holds very still, listening to the claws and breath circle the tent, shoe in one hand, a trickle of sweat rolling down his spine. He shakes Loki again. "Come on!" he hisses under his breath, watching and hearing the scratches come closer to the folded opening of the tent. 

It's ripped open with a wail of the shimmering blue wind, and Tony throws his shoe through the opening with a shout. 

He misses, bowled over back into the wall of the tent, and teeth close over his shoulder. 

There's shouting and frantic shoving against fur and claws, and then the tent is dark again, closed, and Tony can hear his own breath whistling fast between clenched teeth. He can't see anything with his eyes closed against the sting of the blue dust, but he can hear Loki's breathing, less regular than it was. 

He's not dead.

"Good boy," Loki croaks, and Tony identifies the panting at last. 

"The fuck?" He reaches up to feel for a collar, finding it slick with the drool of a dog who's been running for a while. "Oh god. Lucky?" 

Loki stops Tony's hand before he can rub his eyes. "You'll only make it worse. Here." He reaches through a seam of their tent and pulls out the water flask, upending it over Tony's eyes, and into his eyes, holding them open one at a time with his fingertips. 

When Tony blinks the water out of his eyes, he finds Loki and Lucky, sitting side by side, looking ruffled from the winds, but no worse for the wear. 

Loki clears his throat, taking a long drink of water and then pouring a steady stream into his cupped palm for Lucky to lap up with enthusiasm. "It would seem Barton's dog has found us." 

"I thought you said no mortal thing could live out there in the wind," Tony accuses. It's not that he's not GLAD to see Lucky here, but if they could be actually moving on toward Earth instead of sitting on their asses inside Loki's coat, that'd be great. 

"That is technically correct," Loki sighs, ruffling his fingers through Lucky's fur, and leaning his head against the dog's, the picture of exhaustion. 

"Just like you can't use magic here." 

Loki grimaces. "Also technically correct." 

"How about explaining those technicalities to me before something else technically impossible happens around here." Tony would be irritable. He could be irritable. But he's too damn tired, and sore, and hungry, and worn out and glad Loki's alive to expend the energy. 

Lucky whines and scoots down to lie on his front paws, taking Loki with him until he's lying on the floor of the tent as well, long legs drawn up in the awkwardly cramped interior. "I shared my apple with our friend the evening I arrived," Loki says. "And, no, it wasn't something I particularly thought about at the time, although I'm pleased with the decision as it stands now." 

"Barton would kill you if his dog died." 

"As I said, I'm not unhappy with the circumstances." Loki closes his eyes and folds his hands over his stomach. 

"And the other thing?" Tony prompts. 

"There is no magic to use in this place," Loki says. "Technically, one should not be able to do magic in a place without magic." 

"Is this like the horse and fox thing?" 

"You're forgetting the snake," Loki admonishes. "Snakes make the best pillows." 

"I slept on a snake?" 

"You slept on me," Loki corrects. "And I admit, there is a quantity of magic inherent in my existence." 

"So you - " 

"Metaphorically ripped out my own spleen to build us a tent," Loki completes the sentence for him, opening one eye to smile at Tony. "If it makes you feel any better, I will recover." 

"I hope so, because I don't think Lucky's big enough for two." 

Loki laughs, pressing a hand to his upper belly as he does so. "Ow." 

"You weren't kidding about the spleen." 

"I did feel it in roughly the same location." Loki closes both eyes again and settles into a more relaxed pose. "Sleep if you can, Tony. The sooner we leave this world behind, the sooner we recover." 

If they leave that world behind. 

Lucky's company notwithstanding, Tony's got his doubts. It's not exactly Afghanistan, and he's not expecting choppers. 

And he's not expecting sleep, either. 

But sleep comes. Sleep, and unmanly cuddling, and Lucky drooling in his hair. 

 

They're all keeping a vigil in the immense living room these days. A few of them have wandered off now and then for a shower or some private comforting. But the room has not been empty since Lucky vanished. 

Even Jarvis is quiet unless spoken to. 

"I hate this," Clint says, because when there's a need for one man brave enough to break a tense silence, he's happy to step forward. Not his fault Stark usually beats him to it. 

"I don't love it either," Natasha admits, elbows on her knees as she looks out across the New York skyline. "But there's nothing we can do. If they're gone, they're gone. Tony put all the right contingency plans in place. The Avengers continue with Stark Industries funding."

"But no Stark. And no Iron Man." 

Natasha presses her lips together. "Teams change. We've got War Machine," she says, as if that's the same thing at all. "Pepper's willing to step in with Rescue if we need her." 

"Pepper hates having to step in," Clint points out. 

"We pitch in. We do what we have to." She stands up and turns to leave the room, laying a hand on Clint's shoulder. "It's what we do."

"I still don't like it." 

"You don't have to." She gives his shoulder a squeeze and leaves him alone. 

He throws the tennis ball at the window and catches it on the rebound. 

"I hate this," he says again, to no one in particular. 

 

"For the record," Tony says, running a tired hand over his face, "I hate this." He's balanced on one leg, a hand on Lucky's shoulders holding him upright. His other hand shields his face from the finally-risen sun. It's already hot. 

Or maybe that's just him. His leg's swollen the size of a pro football, and he can feel the heat radiating off it through the leg of his jeans. 

The tent collapses with one last indecipherable curse from Loki, who crawls out of the remains. It's the first time he's ever really seen Loki look rumpled, but the gray cast to his skin suggests this is more of the whole 'oh, I just ripped out my magical spleen to save your mortal hide. NBD.' stuff. "And here, I was finding it all so delightful," Loki says, kicking at the mass of leather and fabric. He lowers himself to his knees with a groan and begins to fold. 

"Here." He shoves the fabric at Tony, just expecting him to catch it all without falling over. Honestly, it's a near thing, but Tony's never shied from a challenge. "Throw it over my back," orders Loki the horse, stamping sideways impatiently. 

"Let me guess," Tony says, trying to catch a handful of mane to keep him still. "We've got another long day of running away from nothing while we look for no action, no adventure, and the way home. This is like the dullest movie ever made." 

"Action and adventure have not suited you well so far," Loki turns his head to eye him with a bright green horse eye. "There are those who would kill for an opportunity to ride a horse such as I through alien landscapes." 

Tony grunts, hauling himself up and over Loki's side. His muscles are shaking and he knows he was in decent shape before this whole goatfuck. "Yeah, yeah. I'm living the Lisa Frank dream of millions of little girls world wide. All we need now is a rainbow to trot along above the clouds." 

Loki shudders beneath him and does another of those nervous sideways horse dances. "Please don't talk about rainbows." 

"Is this another Thor thing?" 

Loki breaks into a trot, easing his way back into that land-eating gallop before he answers. "No. But I don't particularly like what follows rainbows either." 

"Sunshine?" Tony asks. 

"Heimdall," Loki says darkly, and Tony could swear he actually runs a little faster. 

Tony cautiously feels around the edges of 2 and 2 before fitting them gingerly together. "Hypothetically speaking, is there danger of an actual rainbow, say, bridge, scooping us up and planting us in front of this Heimdall?"

Loki's only answer is a snort, and a leap when the air begins to hum around them. "What do you think?" 

It goes on like this. The air gets tight. The air hums. Loki throws them ahead, and it feels like he can breathe again. 

And Tony's just going to tell himself this is one more weird thing about Muspelheim. 

He keeps telling himself that right up until Loki fumbles the leap with a horsey scream, and Tony suddenly feels like he's on the stretched end of a long rubber band before they slingshot out into space in the brightest fucking rainbow ever.

 

The landing is nothing to write home about either, and Tony's busy cursing blue agony and clutching at his leg. 

Loki staggers to his feet, fingers feeling down his pant legs for a pair of knives. "Heimdall." 

"Loki," Heimdall replies, turning only his head to look at him. Disapprovingly. What else is new. "Your actions against the crown of Asgard condemn you, and your actions against the Nine condemn us all." 

Loki grimaces, edging around the side of the dome. "Don't you know it's not nice to race to judgment?" 

"Your judgment was bought and paid for the moment your laid hands on a mortal." Heimdall takes a step to the side, and Loki can see far more horned helmets charging across the bridge than he feels are strictly necessary for little old him. But Asgard always did tend to do things on a ridiculous scale. 

"I'd like to return it," Loki says. 

"Return. It?" 

"My judgment. I'd like a new one," Loki says quickly. "It doesn't need to be full price. I'll even take one off the clearance rack if it's all you've got." 

"What in the Nine are you rambling - " Heimdall is cut off with a shout, Lucky's teeth closing around his neck and clamping down. 

Loki throws himself at Heimdall's sword, jamming it back into the stone and holding on for life as the Bifrost rumbles to life around them and aims at Midgard. "Tony!"

Tony staggers to his feet and scrambles across the floor on one good leg and two hands, because he is not proud, and he knows a bad situation when he sees it. "What about Lucky?" he shouts over the noise once Loki's got an arm under his shoulders. 

Loki lunges forward, hurling them into the Bifrost's grasp, loosing a piercing whistle over his shoulder. "Lucky! Here!" 

But Tony can't see anything. 

Can't hear anything. 

And damn, he hopes they land with the dog, because Barton loves the smelly thing, and Tony's pretty sure Lucky's the biggest hero of them all. 

 

"I'm sorry - I - listen, Clint. If I could do something for him, I would, but - " Bruce stops mid-sentence and draws a deep, calming breath. "Put down the arrow, please." He deliberately looks away from the shaking arrow at the bloodied dog on his exam table. 

He hears it clatter behind him, but he's not really all that good at this emotional stuff. He keeps telling them. And telling them. 

"I can't fix your dog, Clint." Bruce gives Lucky's head a pat. "There's nothing wrong with him." 

"Nothing wrong with him? His insides were on his outsides!" The fact that Clint is still covered in Lucky's blood and Loki is nursing a bruised jaw make a compelling argument for Clint's case. And yet. 

"They're not now." Bruce runs a hand over Lucky's shaved belly and gets a wag-thump of his tail in reply. "Not even a scar." Well, not exactly a scar. There's still a jagged red line where the worst tear had been, but it's fading while they watch. 

He claps a hand on Clint's shoulder and goes to wash up. "Give him a good meal and a good nap, and he'll be just fine." 

Sensing the unspoken "down, boy," Lucky hops off the examination table and sets to licking the blood off Clint's hand while Clint stares into the middle distance. 

At the apple Bruce still hasn't eaten. 

He blinks. 

The apple is still there. 

Lucky is still there enthusiastically licking his hand. 

Clint's not too bright, but he can add two and two together. 

"Loki!" 

 

Tony's had his share of hard landings in his life, but he has a feeling that traveling via bifrost is going to remain numbers one and two on the list for a long time. “Tony!” Steve’s the first to notice their arrival, which shouldn’t leave him as touched as it does, but that’s Tony Stark these days. 

Touched. In the head. 

“What happened to him?” Steve’s asking through the ringing in Tony’s ears, and hey, he’s right here! 

“‘m right here,” Tony says again, because he’s not sure he said it out loud the first time. 

“What didn’t happen to him?” Loki demands irritably, standing and stalking away before Steve can ask any more stupid questions. “Fragile fucking humans,” he mutters under his breath. And there may be something that follows, along the lines of 'more trouble than they're worth, I said! Leave them to each other, I said! But did I listen, nooo," which only superserum-enhanced hearing was likely to hear. If there is, Steve has more important things to do right this moment than think about it. 

Steve turns to Tony now that he’s showing signs of life. Sort of. “Did Loki do this to you?” 

“Huh?” Tony looks down his body, reassessing his situation through new eyes. Crusted blood. Fresh blood (when did that happen?), serious BO, assorted grime, and yuck. Is that pus? A tired groan works it’s way out of his throat. “Uh. No. That was the hedgehog. And the guy with the eyes. I think. That might’ve been Lucky.” He gestures to the punctures in his left forearm. 

The world tilts around him, and he suspects he’d throw up if there was anything left in his stomach at this point. Tony’s getting awfully tired of being picked up and carried like a maiden in distress. “Just hang on,” Steve tells him, as if that’s not what Tony’s best at. 

"Why Captain Rogers," Tony says, going for his second best talent, "all the other girls will be so jealous." 

Steve gives him a long look, but doesn't slow down his steps toward Bruce's lab. "Seriously, Tony? That's the best you can do?" 

"I may be concussed," Tony defends himself. 

"Of course you are," Loki snaps, appearing in front of them close enough for Steve to bump into if his reactions were any slower. His eyes are green. His color is good. All indicators point to 'apples' and the indicators are not wrong. "Here," he says, lifting one of Tony's hands and placing a shining golden apple in it. "You already know what it is." He looks from Steve to Tony, back to inscrutable as always, as if he'd never been a windswept mess, and takes a step back. 

"Tony - " Steve has that caution in his tone, but Tony's willing to ignore it.

"Thank you," he says to Loki again, because he's not entirely sure where he stands with this version of Loki. "This is - " 

"A debt owed," Loki finishes for him, casting a look at Steve and vanishing before any of them can say more. 

And Tony might have more thoughts about that, you know, if he wasn't so utterly wrecked. He clutches the apple to his chest and closes his eyes. "To the lab, Jeeves."

"I am not your butler," Steve informs him. "And you're in no condition to spend lab time alone." 

"You have no idea what condition I've spent lab time in," Tony argues. 

"I talk to Pepper." Steve is implacable, immobile, invulnerable to puppy eyes, and damn it, he probably has been talking to Pepper. "You're paying a visit to Bruce." 

"Who is in a lab," Tony says with irritating smugness, fingers shifting on the apple skin. It's unnaturally smooth. Not like wax, just smooth. Or maybe that's how apples off a tree that haven't been put through a hopper and coated in wax are supposed to feel. How the hell would he know? "It's a different lab, but it's still a lab." 

"Yes, Tony," Steve sighs. 

Tony lies back and enjoys the view from Steve's arms (not bad, actually), and gives himself time to think. "You ate your apple," he says after only a moment's thought. 

"What makes you say that?" 

"You haven't taken mine away from me." Not that Tony would make that exactly easy. Especially not at this point. 

"Maybe I just don't want you to die," Steve says. "You thought of that?" 

"Pfft," Tony pffts. "I am not dying. If I was dying, I'd be dead already." It's meant to be comforting, but the tightening of Steve's face suggests it actually wasn't. It probably isn't. "Too soon?" 

"I ate the apple," Steve confirms instead of answering that. It's no fun bantering with a guy who's this touchy. 

Tony turns the apple in his hands. "Did it make any difference?" 

"Not so far as we can tell," Steve says. 

"Why bother?" 

Steve presses the button on the elevator with the hand under Tony's knees. "Someone has to be the leader." 

"You know, that makes no sense. If you don't trust the apple, and don't need the apple, why - " 

"Because they might need the apple," Steve says once the doors are closed behind them. "You need the apple," he adds, though he doesn't look too happy to be saying it. "I'm tired of losing soldiers. Even more tired of losing friends." 

"Captain! Are you suggesting our gift from Loki might actually be benevolent?" 

Steve just plain doesn't answer that one and carries Tony into Bruce's lab. "How's Lucky?" 

"Like he never left," Bruce shrugs, wiping down the exam table one last time and gesturing for Steve to lay Tony on top. 

"How'd you know I was coming?" Tony tries to sit up, only to be held down by Steve. 

Bruce has that slight, helpless, smile on his face that he gets when the situation is funny and he knows it really shouldn't be. "Call it intuition."

"Good intuition," Tony wheezes, falling back on the table and throwing his free arm across his face. "Got the scanner set up?" 

"What?" 

"Yes, Tony," Bruce sighs, and unlocks the wheels on the table. 

And never let it be said Captain Rogers doesn't cotton on quickly enough. "Because Tony's here for scans while he eats the apple," he concludes to no one in particular. "Of course he is." 

"Of course I am," Tony agrees with a wave to Steve. "Want to watch the show?" 

"No." Steve passes a hand over his face. "I - no. You guys have fun." 

"Aye aye, Cap'n," Tony says with the world's worst salute, but what can you expect? He's at Death's front gate! 

 

The shower feels good on battered skin. 

Actually, who is Tony kidding? 

The shower feels like the first real shower of his life, and he's planning to enjoy every tingling, mindless second of it.

He's not even sure, in hindsight, how he was expecting to feel after eating the voodoo apple. He sure as hell wasn't expecting his bones to snap back together like extremely painful Legos, or the full body burn of flesh recreating itself from his bone marrow and blood. 

Nobody ever expects immortality to bring whole new kinds of pain. That's what it is. He's got the shower turned up as hot as it will go, and his skin isn't even turning pink. It feels, in a word, amazeballs. So if Tony chooses to slump contentedly against the wall and let the water pound into his hair, that's exactly what's going to happen, and nobody is going to stop him until he's sucked the entire supply of hot water in Avengers tower ice cold. 

Tony blinks water out of his eyes to stare at his fingertips and laughs. He's not even pruning, and he's been in here just shy of forever. He stretches his fingers and runs them back through his hair, pulling at it for good measure, and groaning at how sheerly good the full-body stretch feels. 

It opens up a whole new world of things he wants to go out and try just to find out how they feel now. Everything from pulling Gs in the Iron Man suit to snacking on ghost peppers. Maybe he'll wrestle a lion. 

Wait - they're endangered, right? He'll wrestle a puma. There's a shit ton of pumas out there in California, getting into people's yards and eating their dogs and stuff, and he will personally wrestle them all one by one. 

It's possible he's a little giddy. 

He grins into the water and shakes his head like a dog, spraying droplets everywhere. He steps out of the shower onto the plush self-warming mat some designer thought would be an ideal bathroom accessory, and right now, he's prepared to agree. He's even growing a whole new appreciation for the stupid towel warming rack Pepper had installed way back when. 

There's a smell of heat and cooked cotton to the towel, and he just buries his nose in it, breathing it all in, and - wow. 

"Are you alright, sir?" Jarvis asks, apparently unable to resist his programmed response to unusual Tony behavior any longer. 

"I am fantastic, J." Tony scrubs off with the towel and slings it around his neck, stretching again. "It's like being drunk, only completely the opposite." He's aware the description may not make sense to anyone but him. However, it does make sense to him, and it describes the feeling of euphoric awareness. 

"Very descriptive, sir." 

Tony snorts. "Predictable, Jarvis." 

"Well, you did program me," Jarvis answers, and Tony supposes he has a point there. "I have continued monitoring your vital signs." 

"And?" Tony slides the bathroom door open, emerging into his bedroom in a cloud of ocean-scented steam. 

"And your heart and respiratory rate would be worryingly slow if it were not for the strength of all other vitals. Your oxygen saturation alone should not be humanly possible." 

Tony shrugs and tosses his towel into the corner reserved for things-other-people-deal-with. "There you go. I guess I'm not humanly possible." 

"Were you ever?" Jarvis' voice is warmly familiar, and Tony grins to himself, falling backwards onto the bed. 

"Ehh," he answers, rocking a hand back and forth. The blanket is just the right amount of rough against his bare back, and he stretches everything again, pressing his head into the mattress, and rolling it back and forth. "This is incredible," he breathes. 

"Good night, sir," Jarvis says fondly, lowering the lights. 

"Night, J," Tony says, rolling onto his stomach and pulling a pillow up to his face. The reinstalled Jarvis isn't quite as sassy as the last model that went into Vision, and Tony doesn't know what to attribute the change to. Maybe it's just his subconscious reflecting what he needs. 

Or maybe Vision had something to do with it. One last hurrah for dad before leaving home or something. 

Whatever. 

Tony lets out a long sigh of contentment. He can still feel the tingling burn in his leg, and the new flesh is conspicuously tender against the sheets. 

It's tempting to find out if anything else is tender, but he's too (and he will admit this only on the inside of his own head) overwhelmed. To everyone else, he'll laugh off godhood, because, hey, he's Tony Stark, and he was born to be a god. In the quiet of his own private mind, though, there's a part of him gibbering away that this is all one huge mistake. 

It already feels like all that time in another world was some kind of bad dream. It's got all the hallmarks. Funky colors. Near-death experiences. Quick change perils. Talking horse. The horse was good company. 

Loki was actually good company. 

He rubs a hand over the side of his face not currently mashed into the pillow. 

This is the point where he'd typically drink himself into a nice, safe coma, but he's seen Thor drink, and he's not sure he has enough alcohol in the entire building to get himself drunk now. Shoulda thought that through, Tony. 

He tries staring at the ceiling. It's dark these days without the arc reactor's glow, but he can see the faint blue reflection of the LED on his shaver's charging station through the open door to the bathroom. 

And it's only because of that light that he sees the figure standing in the corner. He licks his lips. "Is this a stalking thing, or are we talking friendly visit?" 

Loki doesn't answer for a moment, and then: "I couldn't sleep." 

It might be true. It might be a lie. Either way, "What, you got used to sleeping as my pillow?" Because Loki was right. The snake was actually comfortable, and actually Loki, which, in hindsight, is weird, but what's done is done, so who cares?

He's not expecting Loki to say, "Yes." 

But there it is. Loki is a whole deep and mysterious ocean of weird. The shape changing, he's learning, is barely a ripple on the surface.

"Huh," Tony says, and doesn't move other than to prop himself up on his elbows for a better look. 

Loki, for his part, stays right where he is, chin tilted proudly and arms wrapped around himself. Tony's not particularly used to sleeping in the same bed with someone, but who knows. Maybe that's old, mortal Tony. 

This new model might have some unexpected features. 

Either way, Tony shrugs and lifts the edge of the blanket. "Hop in." 

Loki continues to look at him with an expression that's not quite suspicious, not quite trusting. 

Tony lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. "I'm not planning to kick you out now just because I've got a new leg that can." 

"It's not a new leg," Loki informs him with a sniff, crossing the room and sliding between Tony's sheets. HIs feet immediately find Tony's calf and wrap around it. They're cold. "It's the same leg." 

"Correct me if I'm wrong, and I may be, because I don't remember any of the particulars, but didn't you leave big chunks of my leg on Muspellheim?" 

"You're wrong," Loki corrects him, and fails to elaborate at all. He seems more interested in pushing the feathers in Tony's pillow this way and that to get comfortable. 

"Okay," Tony says, watching him with renewed interest. "Okay, see, this should be physically impossible. All of it. We left actual mass behind on another world." 

Loki peels open an eye and arches his brow as if to ask "So what?" 

"So there should have been readings. Records. Signs of a shift in the cosmos. Something." Tony leans on one arm, gesturing with the other. 

Loki rolls his eye and closes it. "Of course there were. It would be impossible otherwise." 

"That's the thing," Tony argues. "No there weren't. None of them. I went over everything Bruce, Jarvis, and I could dig up, think up, and even dream up. We even called The Vision. Do you understand the significance here?"

Loki muffles a snort into the pillow. "Not particularly." 

"Oh."

"But I suppose you'll tell me," Loki continues. 

Tony considers it. He actually does. "Maybe later." It's a long, earth-shaking story, and he's had his earth shaken enough for one week. 

"MmHm," Loki mumbles approvingly. 

"There should have been something," Tony insists. 

Loki heaves a sigh, but otherwise doesn't move. "Your understanding of the cosmos is too limited," he says. "If you moved a single mote to the furthest reaches of space, would the mass of the universe change?" 

"No." 

"There you are." 

"I'm not exactly a mote, pal." 

"Yes. You are Tony Stark," Loki agrees. "Very important." 

"I can still kick you out of my bed." 

"But you won't," Loki says with accuracy. 

"No," Tony agrees. "I won't. How about the leg?" 

"Grown of your own flesh, as you grew in the womb." Wandering cold toes settle in the vicinity of Tony's ankle, bony knees poking him in the thigh. "I cut you, you bleed, you heal," he finishes simply. 

"This is more than a paper cut," Tony protests. 

"Do you wish you had lost your leg?" Loki's voice has taken on the irritated tone of a man being kept from sleep he sorely needs. Since he's sleeping in Tony's bed, Tony finds that a little unfair, frankly. He should have some say over what's done in his bed and when. 

Right now, he wants to talk in it: "No, but - " 

"You seek to understand," Loki finishes with a nod. 

"Yeah." 

"Understand in the morning," Loki says, pulling the covers up over his shoulder as if that settles it. 

"No side effects that're gonna rear up and bite me in the ass?" Tony asks after a few silent moments, because at least he can be the one to decide when everything's settled. 

"No." 

Okay. Morning. He can do morning. 

"Okay." 

 

Tony doesn't do mornings. So when he hears the god of chaos, mischief, and vocal runs singing in the shower, he pulls a pillow over his head and goes back to sleep. Allegedly, his body's been working hard rebuilding his whole leg as it had been in the womb. Or something. 

It hits him however much later, when Jarvis has passive-aggressively opened the window shades to let in the afternoon sun, that he has a question about this whole as-in-the-womb regrowing situation. 

He also has a question about who taught Jarvis to be passive aggressive about Tony's schedule, but that's a question involving way more than all the usual suspects, so Tony's willing to abandon it (for now) in favor of the one suspect likely to have a good answer for him. 

"Where's Loki?" 

"In the training room, sir. With master Thor." 

Tony lets that sink in for a bit. "What're they doing?" 

"Training, it appears." 

"Huh." Tony swings his legs over the edge of the bed and pulls on the haphazard equivalent of modest clothing. After a wandering detour to raid the refrigerator of fresh grapefruit juice, he makes his way down to the room in question. 

Training, it seems, looks a lot like staring into each other's eyes at close range. "Don't mind me," he says to the gods utterly ignoring his presence while he seats himself on a pile of mats. "Do your Asgardian thing." He takes a long drink of grapefruit juice and considers the taste to kill some time until Thor and Loki actually do something. 

It's bitter, because, well, when isn't it, but he can taste the pleasant fresh sweetness underneath and feel the tingling burn of pith against his gums. It's not bad. New. But not bad. Still recognizably grapefruit juice. 

He swishes it like wine and stares at the ceiling. There's a little mustiness like the smell of late-season fruit rotting under the trees, and he's not sure yet if he minds it. 

There's a shout, drawing his attention back to the mat just in time to see Thor land flat on his back, Loki panting over him, hands held warily between them like some ninja master. 

"You did not learn that move on Asgard," Thor says slowly, sounding entirely like a man regaining acquaintance with his own solar plexus. 

"No," Loki agrees. "I did not. Did you like it?" He straightens and offers a hand down to Thor, pulling him easily to his feet when he takes it. 

"Aye. I would learn it from you, brother." 

"If you can," Loki says with a hint of challenge. 

"Do you believe I, mightiest warrior in Asgard, could fail to learn so simple a feint?" 

Loki raises his hands and steps back. "I believe even Tony Stark could accomplish the move more effectively." 

And Tony finds himself the center of attention just like that. He swallows his mouthful of juice. "Uhh, why don't we leave fragile little un-armored Tony out of this?" he suggests. 

"Why should we?" Loki asks. "You're hardly as fragile as you were yesterday morning." 

"I was dying yesterday morning." 

"Merely at the gatepost of Death's summer cottage," Loki says, waving it away, and Tony regrets his own flippancy. Again. 

"I'm healing," he defends himself. 

"You looked healed to me," Loki counters with a tilt of his head, and Tony finds himself inexplicably grateful Loki doesn't say something like 'or was it someone else's leg I felt up all night last night?' 

He's not ready for that. 

"You are healed," Thor agrees, interrupting any possible further letting of cats out of bags for the time being. "The golden apples of Asgard cure everything shy of death itself." 

"Super," Tony says. He pushes himself to his feet with a groan, and stands there swaying when he realizes the groan was - well - habit. "Okay," he says, letting Thor manhandle him to the middle of the mat while he tries to take stock of everything. "Okay. So what do I do?" 

Loki takes Tony by the arm and draws him a short distance away. Thor rolls his eyes skyward, because Norns forbid Loki should allow Thor to see this new trick coming. He resolves himself to landing on the mat once again. 

The only possible saving grace, really, is Tony's lack of training and poor acquaintance with his own strength. 

Maybe. 

"Okay," Tony says again, in that tone that has no concrete faith in itself but is willing to give everything a go. "Come at me, big boy." 

"Big boy?" Thor echoes. 

Tony shrugs. "It's not original, I'll grant you, but a minute ago, I was just drinking breakfast and minding my own beeswax in the corner over there." 

"Perhaps you need time to warm up before attempting hand to hand combat with a god," Thor suggests, shifting his gaze to Loki, who has taken up Tony's morning drink and is in the process of draining it dry. 

"Yeah, yeah. If you're trying to psyche me out, it's working." Tony dances back and forth like a boxer. Thor has always found it an especially ridiculous Midgardian move. Designed to do nothing more than to make the dancer appear foppish and vain.

And vulnerable. 

Thor plucks Tony out of the air mid-step, intent on lifting him high and acquainting him with his new healing abilities when the world swings out from under him, and he lands on the mat with a yell, pain blazing from his instep. 

He's vaguely conscious of Tony rolling to his feet to hover over him. 

"Was the instep deliberate?" Loki asks, appearing next to Tony with his hands tucked behind his back. 

"Um," Tony says, panting a little. "I think it might've been instinct. I was always the little kid." 

Loki smiles and offers a hand to Thor, pulling him again to his feet. "And now I will teach you," he says with friendliness Thor doesn't trust. "And then you may attempt to unbalance me and enjoy your revenge." 

"Why do I sense a trick?" Thor looks from Loki to Tony. 

Loki's smile grows. "Where is the trick? Hand to hand. My body versus yours."

"Your smaller, lighter body," Thor says slowly. 

"Ahh," Loki says, placing a theatrical fingertip against his chin. "Is that what it is?" 

"I believe so, brother." Thor reaches out to shove Loki's arm, rather harder than necessary. He takes enjoyment in watching Loki stumble over his feet. "A clever trick, indeed." 

"I don't suppose you'd like to see it again," Loki says sweetly, flexing his fingers behind his back and not rubbing the sore spot on his arm. 

"Nay." Thor waves them off. "I see you have taken your physical studies beyond Asgard's borders, as well." 

"I learn wherever I go," Loki says. "Whether I want to go there or not." 

"Ah," Thor says, as if discovering something profound in Loki's words. 

Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. 

Who knows. 

Loki turns to Tony once Thor is gone and looks him over. "You slept well," he says. It's not a question, but it is kind of weird. 

"I did," Tony says, because why not admit it. "Funny what you get used to during an interdimensional kidnapping jaunt." 

"I was a snake then," Loki says. 

Tony gives the comparison due consideration before saying, "Weirdly, it wasn't all that different."  
"You wound me," Loki says, hand pressed to his heart. 

"Really?" Tony takes a closer look at Loki's expression, and - nope - no super godly increase in perception there. "It was meant as a compliment." 

"Really?" It's Loki's turn to say. 

"You were a great snake. I'm not the type of guy who goes around admiring reptiles usually." Tony looks around the gym as if it will give him an idea of where to go with this next. It doesn't. "I'll look back on that part fondly," he finishes. 

He's not prepared for Loki to sway closer, and his instincts are torn between stepping back and leaning forward. His body makes the decision for him, and so his eyes are closed when Loki says, "You really aren't going to ask prying questions about my past, are you?" 

That wasn't exactly what Tony was expecting. His eyes fly open and Loki is still right there. Not kissing him (not that Tony thought he would, of course, because - ridiculous) but looking at him closely and casually invading his space. 

Tony shrugs. "I don't like prying questions." 

"Hmm, no. I suppose you wouldn't," Loki concedes. 

"And if this whole personality change has been a sham, and you wanted me dead, I'd have been dead a dozen times over. That's pretty solid evidence right there."

"You're not curious?" 

"I didn't say that," Tony says. "I just don't like prying questions." 

Loki rocks back on his feet and lifts his gaze toward the ceiling, losing a moment in thought. "Hmm," he only says and disappears.

 

He reappears walking next to Thor. Enough like old times to make Thor's heart ache within his chest. "I thought you were above mortals," he says to this odd new version of Loki. 

Loki doesn't glance at him, merely continues to keep pace as if he is going where Thor's going. Wherever that is. "Did you?" he asks casually. "And what brings us to this line of conversation, Thor? I see no mortals here." 

"Tony Stark," Thor hints with all the subtlety of Mjolnir. Some things are a work in progress. 

"It's a good thing he isn't mortal then, isn't it," Loki comments. 

"Hmm. Yes. Funny how that happened," Thor answers, turning a random corner just to see if Loki will keep pace. 

He does, longer strides easily accommodating the curve without losing step or position next to Thor. Even he forgets, sometimes, how long they have spent walking together like this. 

"You do have an interest in him, then," Thor says. He has no hope of catching Loki off guard, and so is not disappointed when he doesn't. 

"Perhaps," Loki says before hurrying on. "And perhaps it is the simple reaction of a man who has been through hell far too many times in these past few years responding kindly to the first gentle touches he has experienced since he fell." 

Gentle touches and Tony Stark has never previously co-existed in Thor's mind before being placed there by Loki. "And if it is?" 

"Then I would do well to examine myself more closely before one of us gets hurt," Loki replies, somewhat more of an edge in his voice than previous, and that won't do. 

"Do you suppose his gentleness is the result of trauma or his innate nature?" Thor asks, opening the stairwell door and leading them down several levels. 

Loki arches an eyebrow at him, seemingly unconcerned by their destination. "His innate nature blasted me halfway across Manhattan once upon a time." 

"And yours nearly leveled his home," Thor points out in the interest of fairness. 

Loki has never particularly been interested in fairness. "It was shoddy workmanship." 

Thor hopes fervently that this particular opinion never makes it back to Tony's ears. "It was a modern day palace, fit for kings." 

"And now, it is a citadel," Loki says approvingly. He steals a glance at Thor. "You don't honestly think I would have agreed to hide out here if it was as poorly protected as it was when I brought the Chitauri down upon you all." 

"No," Thor agrees, "and you may wish to avoid the Chitauri in future conversation. Some of them take it personally." He takes it personally. But he's good at getting past these things. Mortals, on the other hand, are spectacular at holding grudges. 

"As if they'll be forgotten any time soon." Loki brushes off the entire subject. "We move on. We always move on, and we leave the past behind." 

Thor chuckles. 

"You find it funny?" 

"I find it odd that an immortal god is as much the futurist as Tony Stark." 

"Futurist," Loki rolls the word across his tongue, considering it. "There is potential there," he admits and pushes open the door into a floor of offices, striding down the hall as if he belongs there amongst the mid-level management. 

Thor, mystifyingly enough, finds himself keeping pace with Loki. He wonders when it changed. "Where are we going?" he thinks to ask. 

"Lunch," Loki says. "The elevator is much more efficient, isn't it?" 

 

When Loki appears in the mirror while Tony's selecting his wardrobe for the day after a shower, he considers again whether the timing is deliberate. "So," he says, tossing socks and underwear onto the bed before turning. "I hope this isn't going to be some kind of random kinky post-mortal fling." 

Loki blinks. Tony supposes it's his version of looking 'taken aback' or one of those other expressions expressive people wear. The micro-expression is gone as soon as it registers. "And what if it is?" Loki asks, circling Tony to examine his closet. 

Tony shrugs and tosses a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans after the undergarments. "We're going to have a really long time to be awkward in." 

Hands rest on his bare back, preceding Loki's reply. "You're given the gift of immortality, and that is what you worry about?" 

The hands are nice. Neither cool nor hot, but distinctly curious. He shrugs lightly enough not to dislodge Loki's hands. "I don't do awkward," Tony explains. "And honestly, Immortality isn't that big a deal. Why change now?" 

Did that sound like a big fat lie? 

It sounded like a big fat lie. 

They ignore it. 

Tony turns around and leans back against the chest of drawers. He looks down at the hands smoothly examining his scarred chest then looks up at Loki. "It's pretty much your move here, tall, dark, and complicated." 

Brief surprise melts away into a genuine smile, and this time, when Loki moves forward, his lips brush over the edge of Tony's facial hair, warm breath fanning over his lips and making them tingle. "I suppose awkward is just a risk you'll have to accept," he says against Tony's lips, capturing one between his own, the briefest, softest nip. 

It's strangely equine. 

Tony draws back a fraction to look into Loki's face. "Are you messing with me?" 

Loki's fingers flex on the scarred skin over Tony's heart. "Not this time. At least, I don't think so." 

"Oh, that's comforting." Tony pushes away from the dresser, walking Loki backwards toward the bed. 

"Well," Loki says with a brief pause for falling down onto rumpled covers, "if you'd wanted comforting, you wouldn't be here flirting with me." 

Tony is pretty sure this is at least half past flirting, but who knows, maybe immortality gives you new perspective. "I'm guessing comfort's more your speed." 

"Excuse me?" Loki half sits and Tony calmly weighs him down. He tugs the t-shirt over Loki's head and into his pile of laundry. 

After all, it's his t-shirt. 

"Comfort," Tony elaborates. "Warmth," he suggests, running his hands down Loki's chest in a mirror of Loki's earlier explorations. "Hell, maybe even consistency. That's what you're looking for." 

"You must be joking," Loki says, less breathless than Tony wants him to be at this point, but he'll take what he can get. There's breathiness there. He can work with this. 

"Me? Joke? You must have me confused with that other guy." The one who's not straddling Loki's lap like he has an idea what he's doing here. 

"I see noone else," Loki points out, hands still limp against the bed where they've fallen. It's a clear message: it's Tony's game right now. 

"Well, yeah. The other guy. The one who's never been on a wild and wooly Loki adventure across the cosmos." 

"It was only Muspelheim - " 

"Across the cosmos," Tony repeats himself, pointing a finger in Loki's face. "Snuggling with snakes and riding mythologically famous horses across alien landscapes, developing the least romantic Stockholm Syndrome ever - " 

"That only counts if you've been kidnapped," Loki objects. "I did not kidnap you - " 

Tony ignores it, "Fueling the craziest, and I may possibly mean literal craziest, urge to - um." he trails off, because there's no manly way to say the rest of this. There just isn't. But Loki's waiting, and if the twitching of his fingers is any indication, he's getting impatient. Tony runs a hand through his hair and stares up at the ceiling to which he addresses the rest of his thoughts in a rush: "urge to let you keep taking care of me, because while the possibility of dying and the experience of my flesh suppurating on my bones was fucking awful, it wasn't actually the worst thing I've ever experienced."

Loki looks like he's working his way through the pile of words, and Tony realizes at some point that he's wrapped his hands around Loki's wrists. And Loki's fingers are sliding pensively over his skin. "Because I took care of you," Loki says eventually. 

Tony goes for broke. "Because you cared."

Loki opens his mouth for the obligatory expression of scorn, but his eyes trail across Tony's face and he shuts his mouth without saying anything. 

"It was good," Tony says before Loki can change his mind. "And I think you're a lot like me in that it's novel to you. The whole caring thing. And it worries you a little when you think about the fragility of the person doing the caring except it's really hard to think of you as fragile at all." Tony takes a breath. "But you did a pretty good job caring for the fragile mortal." 

Frown lines crease the skin between Loki's eyebrows. "Hmm. You strike me as a man who has many who care for him." 

"I have. And it's - okay, it doesn't always end well. It usually doesn't end well, because I'm me, and I'm Iron Man, and there's things that come with being a hero. But I'm selfish, too." 

"Let me get this straight," Loki says, working his head into a more comfortable angle on the mattress. "You are interested in pursuing a dalliance with me because you are under the impression I am indestructible and would take care of you without the risk of ." 

"Okay," Tony says, shaking his head. "That's completely wrong. I see where it came from, but that is completely and totally wrong."

"I'm waiting," Loki says. 

"I want to try taking care of you," Tony says. "I don't think you've had enough of it in your life." 

"Excuse me?" Loki looks at him as if he's gone mad. Maybe he has. "You wanted to enter me in the Kentucky Derby as your horse!"

"And I still do," Tony goes on, because honestly, that would be hilarious. "But you know what you have in common with thoroughbred race horses and me?" 

"Enlighten me," Loki says, his tone unimpressed, but his body language relaxed. 

"Pampering," Tony says. "Total lives of luxury. And 24/7 guard." He shrugs. "It's dangerous out there being the best." 

"You propose to pamper me," Loki repeats, summing up the most ridiculous part of what Tony said, because, of course he does. 

"Well, we could give it a try and see where it goes," Tony says. "And you can keep making sure I don't get my newly immortal self killed, and I can see what I can do about your little PR problem with the city of New York and Earth in general, and maybe even make sure you eat a healthy breakfast." 

Loki gives him a look of utter skepticism. 

"Okay, the breakfast thing probably isn't going to happen," Tony admits, "but it's for the best for everyone concerned. I may order fantastic brunch take out on occasion when I remember it's morning and that brunch is a thing people do in the mornings." 

"You are proposing domesticity," Loki finally realizes. 

"I - " Tony starts to object and then thinks about it. "Huh. Yeah. I guess maybe I am. Who knew it'd take immortality to get me there." He runs his hands back up Loki's arms to his shoulders, and leans against his chest, head tilted to one side. "So, what do you say?" 

"It is a lunatic proposal," Loki says. "I haven't even bedded you yet."

"Excuse me? I'm actually working up to bedding you here, you know." 

Loki waves off any possible semantics in that exchange. "What if we find each other dissatisfying?" 

"Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's not going to be an issue." Tony does not steal another look at the long body beneath him. It's actually weird how powerful the drive for some kind of stability is right now with eternity stretching out in front of him. "But if it is," he concedes, "we let it go. I mean, worse things have happened. Recently, even." He holds out a hand. "What do you say?" 

"You mean to shake on this. Like a business proposal." 

"Well, I'd seal it with a kiss, but that's a little too Disney Princess for me." Tony wags his fingers until Loki grasps his hand and shakes solemnly. "There. Was that so hard, n- " He yelps, drawn down by Loki's grip and rolled under some 170 pounds of Norse god. Thereupon, he finds himself pinned, and lips exploring the line of his jugular in a way that feels a lot more intimate than some kiss. 

Right up until Loki bites, hard, at the juncture of Tony's neck and shoulder, bringing a groan deep out of his chest. 

"H - holy shit, you don't mess around." 

Loki has that half smile tugging at his lips again, and Tony can see a flash of teeth that are suddenly a lot more interesting than they were five minutes ago. "You seal your covenants your way. I will seal them mine." 

"You're welcome to seal that one a little more if you think it could use it," Tony suggests. The burning tingle left behind may or may not have anything to do with magic, but he thinks he'd be willing to explore the possibility further.

"You think I'm finished?" Loki asks. "That was merely the first sigil of many." 

"Excuse me, I've had a lot of hickeys in my life but this is the first time I've ever heard one called a - oh!" 

Loki draws his fingers back from Tony's shoulder. "Sigil," he says with emphasis. "If you show aptitude in the arts, I may even teach you how to bestow one." 

"That - uh - you know what?" Tony half sits up, and knows his eyes are kinda glazed at this point, but who cares. "How about I just practice a lot until then?" He can swear he sees the pulse jump in Loki's throat when he makes the suggestion. 

Loki swallows. "I believe - that would be an adequate course of preparation." 

Tony rolls them over again and crawls up Loki's body. "Okay, so I've got a great memory, but you're gonna have to tell me if I get anything wrong here..."

"Practice," Loki breathes. "I will be your willing guinea pig." 

"Guinea pigs, snakes, horses, foxes," Tony says against the damp skin of Loki's neck. "You're going to give me a complex." 

"I am complex," Loki grips his fingers into Tony's hair. "Deal with it." 

"Deal," Tony agrees nonsensically. Hey. He's got sigils to practice, alright? 

 

Thor finds, or perhaps is found, by Clint in the evening on the landing pad. The smoke from the barbecue foretells a feast of chicken and hamburgers in the not so distant future. He detours to the refrigerator and brings Clint a beer along with his own. 

"Hey," Clint says casually, flipping two burgers at once, moving easily across the grill. 

"Greetings," Thor answers, opening his bottle and taking a long, refreshing swig. 

"You know what I realized, Thor?" Clint rubs the back of one wrist over his forehead, pushing sweaty hair out of his face. 

"What is that?" Thor squints in the glare of the setting sun off of myriad class windows. 

"Loki and me, we hugged it out the night he got in," Clint says, so casual Thor almost overlooks his meaning entirely. He must be slipping. 

"Oh," Thor says, and means so many things by it. 

"Yeah, oh," Clint agrees, leaning back and popping the top off his own beer. "So I can't help but wonder why one of Loki's enemies would target Tony, of all people, with the curse." He shakes his head. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it," Thor asks without asking. 

"It really doesn't. Because, it made sense when the whole point was targeting Loki for laying his hands on a mortal. But when the mortal gets specific, it doesn't really make sense anymore. At least, not as a curse." 

"What else would it be?" Thor attempts to keep his face utterly neutral. 

"A curse," Clint admits, "probably. I mean, you said it was a curse, and you've got the worst poker face ever." Clint waves a hand. "I mean, you're doing it right now." 

"Doing what?" 

"Poker face," Clint says again, inexplicably. "Badly." 

Thor scowls. 

"See, that's so much better. I can't even tell which part you're scowling about." Clint says and raises his hands when Thor makes a vaguely threatening move toward him. "Okay, okay. So just - nod if I'm right or something, okay? It's a curse." 

Thor nods. 

"But not from Odin." 

Thor nods again. 

"Holy shit. You cursed your baby brother!" 

Thor scowls and takes another drink of his beer. "I had not thought to be so transparent." 

"Ah, nobody was looking for it," Clint shrugs and tests a thigh for done-ness. "And anyway, I'm a spy. So all that's left is figuring out why. I mean - why curse Tony?" 

"The curse was cast upon Loki only," Thor says. Perhaps Clint may be persuaded to keep this tale between the two of them. "And aye, Tony was the trigger." 

"And that's the funny part. I mean - he's not your best buddy or anything, but you actually like Tony." Clint flicks a bun open in one hand and slides a burger onto it, passing the whole thing over to Thor. 

"I do," Thor agrees, taking the peace offering for what it is and adding his own condiments. "As I like my brother," Thor says, uncapping the A1. "And I wish nothing more than to see my brothers content and happy for once in their scattered lives." He takes an appreciative bite and then continues to eat while Clint works through the rest of the problem. 

He reminds himself not to underestimate Clint Barton's intelligence again. 

"You actually cursed them to hook them up?" Clint asks, clearly incredulous that there was only one possible answer left. 

Thor licks a mixture of sauces and beef drippings from his thumb and spreads his free hand in a gesture of helplessness. "How else?" he asks. "How else?" 

Clint piles all the meat from the grill onto platters and turns off the gas. He makes himself his own burger and takes a bite of it, chews slowly. "When you put it that way, it's actually pretty clever. Aside from the part about Tony almost getting killed." 

"I have every faith in Tony Stark's ability to look after himself," Thor says. "And I know my brother." 

"You sneaky son of a bitch," Clint concludes at last. 

Thor smiles and helps himself to another hamburger. "I did learn from the best," he says, though he doubts very much that the best would appreciate being bested. 

 

"Whoa, that is some kind of hickey, man," Rhodey says upon Tony's arrival at the breakfast table. "You seeing the wolf-woman or something?" 

"Or something," Tony agrees, helping himself to a mug of coffee. "At least, I don't think he does wolf. Fox, definitely. Wolf, I'm not so sure." 

"I'm not actually sure which part of all that I should parse first," Rhodey admits. 

"Roll with it," Tony advises, leaning back on his stool to catch a passing Loki and steal a kiss. "Morning, honeybunch." 

Loki gives him a long, unimpressed, look. "Call me that again, and I will end you." 

Tony shrugs, accepting Loki's peck on the lips and letting him go. "It's a work in progress. And King of Worlds, destroyer of realms kind of puts me off first thing in the morning." 

"It was only a SUGGESTION," Loki reminds him, opening the refrigerator and rummaging through the fruit bin. "As were several more staid and traditional options." 

"My lord?" Tony asks. 

"You liked that one," Loki recalls, ignoring Rhodey's sputter entirely. 

"Yeah, well, if I go around calling you things I like that much, we're never going to get anything done." Tony pulls a tablet his way and flicks through the news feed and messages. 

"I - so - this is a thing," Rhodey says, gesturing between Tony and Loki. "A wholly unexpected and kind of kinky-weird thing." 

"It is a thing," Tony agrees. "Why are you here anyway?" 

"Flight check," Rhodey reminds him. 

"Seriously? When did I schedule that?" 

"Before the thing." Rhodey says into his coffee. 

"Which thing? You're going to have to clarify, because there's been a lot of things lately," Tony says, settling in at his counter with his coffee and his tablet and his - whatever Loki is. Just his. 

It's nice. 

Rhodey sighs. "So are you gonna make it or what?" 

"It depends," Tony says. "Are you going to let me buzz the tourists on the Empire State Building this time?" 

"You know that's dangerous - " 

"Please. It's me. Safe as houses. And anyway, the tourists love it." He turns to Loki. "Want to watch?" 

"I could be persuaded. Perhaps it is time to take a tourist's tour of New York." 

"Great," Tony finishes his coffee and sets down the cup. "Meet me in the lab in fifteen."

"Why fifteen?" Rhodey looks suspiciously at Tony. "And you and me are gonna talk about this 'thing,' you know." 

"Looking forward to it," Tony says in his 'actually, I didn't hear a word you said,' voice. "And because I'm not actually wearing anything under this robe, and last time I dropped the robe in front of you, you threatened to do unspeakable things to my manhood." 

"That's a good reason," Rhodey agrees with the long suffering sigh of a man who recognizes his best friend in the throes of romantic love. "Fifteen, then." 

"Fifteen," Tony agrees. "Because honestly, I need my manhood. Especially right now, and I'd hate to have to fight you over it." 

"Just - go." 

Tony waves, loosening his belt as he goes. "Going." 

And Rhodey pretends, with all his might, that he does not see Loki going after him. 

It's probably all a really bad idea. 

Going to go to hell, and get them all killed before its done. 

But damn, it is kinda nice seeing Tony happy.


End file.
